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The  Assurance  of  Faith. 


By 

WILLIAM  W.  GUTH, 

President  College  of 
the  Pacific. 


Let  us  draw  near  with  a  true  heart  in 
full   assurance  of  faith. — Hebrews  10:22. 


Ctndmtattr 
JENNINGS    AND    GKAHAM. 

EATON    AND    MAINS. 


COPYRIGHT,  1911,  BY 
JENNINGS  AND  GRAHAM. 


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TO  WHOM 

I  TALKED  IN  TERMS 

OF  THESE 

PAGES. 


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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

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PREFACE. 

Faith  has  its  assurance  even  more  than 
sight.  It  is  like  the  sensitized  plate  which 
the  astronomer  places  in  his  camera  and 
exposes  before  the  heavens,  full  of  visible 
stars,  to  catch  and  reproduce  the  invisible. 
With  the  eye  of  faith  man  looks  at  the 
things  that  are  seen  and  sees  the  things 
that  can  not  be  seen  with  the  eye  of  sight. 
The  astronomer  would  have  but  a  partial 
knowledge  of  the  stellar  universe  if  Jie 
could  not  fix  by  photography  the  worlds  in- 
visible even  to  the  eye  looking  through  the 
strongest  telescope.  So  man's  knowledge 
would  be  sadly  incomplete  if  he  could  not 
fix  by  faith  the  worlds  invisible  even  to 
the  strongest  telescope  of  the  intellect. 
It  is  in  this  invisible  world  we  live.  It 
3 


PREFACE. 

is  our  waking  realm.  THere  thought  and 
aspiration  and  love  have  their  rightful  and 
only  reign.  There  we  emerge  from  the 
chrysalis  of  matter  into  the  atmosphere  of 
mind, — the  supreme,  the  creating,  the 
dominating  Mind.  And  our  minds  can  re- 
spond to  and  be  moved  upon  by  this  Mind 
until  they  hold  in  firm  grasp  the  meaning 
of  life  and  destiny. 

We  walk  by  sight ;  we  progress  by  faith. 
By  sight  we  must  pick  out  our  way  weari- 
somely, and  are  never  sure  we  are  right, 
for  we  have  only  our  imperfect  eyes  as  a 
help.  By  faith  we  can  leap  by  leagues  into 
the  circumference  of  truth,  and  we  despair 
not  of  reaching  the  center  because  of  its  at- 
tractive forces  pulling  us  on.  To  change 
the  figure,  we  make  our  assumptions  by 
faith  and  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles. 
We  recognize  that  these  assumptions  must 
be  tested,  so  we  slacken  our  pace  and  run, 
but  are  not  weary.  We  move  more  slowly 
4 


PREFACE. 

as  we  undertake  to  prove  all  things  we 
would  hold  fast,  and  hence  walk,  but  do 
not  faint.  The  assumption  puts  us  in  the 
region  of  certainty.  By  intellectual  in- 
quiry we  can  find  our  immediate  where- 
abouts. Faith  is  to  reason  what  a  means 
of  conveyance  is  to  a  journey 's  end.  Faith 
carries  us  to  reason,  and  not  reason  to 
faith.  We  study  to  give  a  reason  for  the 
faith  that  is  in  us.  It  is  faith  that  impels 
us  to  reason. 

In  the  following  pages  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  emphasize  the  part  faith  plays  in 
our  being.  In  various  ways,  and  with  some 
repetition,  I  have  dwelt  upon,  first,  the  nec- 
essary, underlying  assumption  of  the  per- 
sonality of  God,  using  the  term  as  signi- 
fying the  Being  who  lives  and  labors  and 
loves,  who  actualized  and  actualizes  Him- 
self in  mankind,  and  who  fully  revealed 
His  nature  to  us  in  Jesus  the  C/hrist;  and 
second,  the  reality  and  sufficiency  of  man's 
5 


PEEFACE. 

mind,  his  ability  to  receive  and  compre- 
hend the  truth  of  God,  and  his  need  of  a 
submissive  spirit  in  order  to  understand 
himself  as  well  as  the  Almighty  and  live 
a  life  worth  while.  I  have  sought  to  make 
the  papers  more  concrete  by  basing  the 
thought  of  each  upon  some  incident  or  say- 
ing of  Holy  Writ.  What  is  here  said  is 
the  substance  of  a  series  of  talks  given  at 
various  times  before  student  assemblies 
with  the  hope  of  strengthening  youth  in 
firm  reasons  for  religious  and  spiritual 
striving  and  of  establishing  the  cause  for 
an  abiding  conviction  in  the  assurance  of 
faith. 

To  give  credit  to  all  who  have  influenced 
my  thinking  is  impossible.  Fellow-stu- 
dents of  Borden  P.  Bowne,  however,  will 
not  fail  to  note  my  great  indebtedness  to 
him  for  what  is  good  in  this  book. 

WILLIAM  W.  GUTH. 

San  JosS,  October  26, 1910. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGUD 

I.  The  Kingdom  of  Truth,        -        -  11 

II.  The  Inviolability  of  Truth,   -  23 

III.  Symbols  of  Spiritual  Truth,        -  40 

IV.  The  Temporal  and  the  Eternal,  58 
V.  Approaches  to  God,  73 

VI.  God's  Way  Natural,  -    90 

VII.  The  Beliefs  of  Unbelief,         -       108 

VIII.  God  Resting,  -        -       -        -        -  127 

IX.  The  Dialogue  With  God,  -       147 

X.  On  Holy  Ground,  -       -        -       -  162 

XI.  Christianity  in  the  Vernacular,  176 

XII.  The  Valley  Between,       -        -       190 

XIII.  Life's  Counterpoise,      -        -        -  205 

XIV.  And  Another  Shall  Gird  Thee,  221 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 


1 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  TRUTH. 

Pilate  was  interested  in  Jesus  only  as  an 
enemy  of  the  Eoman  State.  A  King  whose 
Kingdom  was  not  of  this  world  could  do 
no  harm  to  Caesar.  He  was  willing  to  set 
Jesus  at  liberty.  He  could  not  disguise 
his  contempt,  however,  for  a  Man  who 
claimed  to  be  a  Witness  to  the  truth. 
Abruptly  closing  his  interview  with  Him, 
he  said,  "What  is  truth V9  and  then  gave 
Jesus  no  opportunity  to  reply.  Pilate  was 
teonvinced  there  was  no  reply  to  be  given. 
The  verdict  of  history,  however,  is  that 
Jesus  knew  something  about  the  truth 
worth  hearing.  His  Kingdom,  founded  on 
the  truth,  has  been  more  lasting  than 
the  kingdom  represented  by  Pilate.  He 
claimed  to  be  the  Supreme  Witness  to  the 
11 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

truth.  His  claim  is  well  founded.  For  as 
we  dwell  upon  His  life  we  find  it  squaring 
with  truth  in  all  its  elements. 

To  begin  with,  truth  is  in  and  through 
all  things  fundamental.  "When  we  speak 
of  a  circle  or  straight  line,  we  speak  of 
something  that  is  absolutely  true.  We  pay- 
little  attention  to  straight  lines  and  circles 
as  we  find  them  taking  form  in  some  or- 
dinary dwelling  house  or  humble  chapel. 
We  expect  a  building  to  be  true.  If  it 
were  not  so  we  might  stop  and  wonder  at 
the  incompetence  of  the  man  who  built  the 
house  and  comment  upon  the  danger  to 
those  living  therein.  But  when  we  see 
stone  piled  upon  stone,  regular  and  true  in 
line  and  curve,  until  a  cathedral  or  a  pal- 
ace stands  before  us,  we  stop  and  marvel 
at  the  mind  and  skill  of  man.  Truth  is 
there  hardened  and  set  in  every  inch  of 
stone  and  wood.  The  architect  knew  that 
only  thus  would  his  structure  stand.  When 
he  drew  his  plans  he  started  every  curve, 
12 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  TEUTH. 

every  line  true,  that  when  joined  together 
the  truth  would  appear  in  one  unbroken 
succession,  and  the  image  of  his  mind, 
which  he  had  transferred  to  paper,  take 
form  in  the  real  cathedral.  Had  he 
planned  but  the  humble  chapel  he  would 
have  planned  in  the  same  way,  for  he 
knew  that  the  forces  in  nature  are  true  at 
the  center  and  that  if  he  would  have  his 
building  stand  with  these  he  must  relate 
it  to  them.  "We  look  with  peculiar  wonder 
upon  the  leaning  tower,  but  with  no  desire 
to  have  such  a  structure  duplicated.  An 
architect  does  not  study  how  he  can  defy 
the  law  of  gravitation  and  make  a  building 
fourteen  feet  out  of  plumb  stand.  He 
studies  how  to  bring  his  mind  and  his  work 
into  harmony  with  the  truth.  So  we  pro- 
ceed in  life.  "We  plan  for  our  house  of 
character  just  as  the  architect  plans  for 
his  cathedral,  by  making  use  of  the  true 
and  relating  ourselves  to  it.  There  are 
many  leaning  towers  in  the  lives  of  men 
13 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

,nd  women,  but  no  real  man  will  sit  down 
o  study  how  far  from  the  plumb  of  right- 
ousness  he  can  build  his  character  and 
aintain  his  own  respect  and  that  of  his 
fellows.     His  natural  impulse  is  to  build 
^  true  and  straight.    This  is  so  because  truth 
is  at  the  bottom.    It  is  a  kingdom  on  which 
all  other  kingdoms  rest.     It  was  in  this 
realm  that  Jesus  said  He  was  Euler.    He 
proves  His  sovereignty  every  time  a  man 
ventures  to  relate  his  life  to  His.    It  is  as 
true  as  a  straight  line  or  a  circle,  and  no 
one  can  be  led  in  a  crooked  path  by  fol- 
lowing Him.     There  are  many  criticisms 
made  on  the  teaching  and  claims  of  Jesus. 
I  /  But  we  have  never  seen  nor  heard  a  state- 
I  ment  made  by  one  who  followed  Jesus  that 
I  he  was  deceived  or  led  astray.    With  Jesus 
as  the  Architect  no  man  can  rear  a  leaning 
tower  in  his  life.    According  to  His  plumb 
line  every  square  and  surface  is  true.    He 
and  truth  are  fundamental. 

Truth  is  also  its  own  best  expression, 
14 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  TEUTH. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  explain  to  a  child 
what  a  circle  is  without  showing  him  one. 
Once  he  has  seen  a  circle  he  will  talk  un- 
derstandingly  about  it  without  being  able 
technically  to  describe  it.  And  to  many  of 
us  a  circle  remains  simply  a  circle.  It  is 
its  own  best  expression.  We  would  be  put 
to  a  test  to  define  it  offhand  in  terms  of 
geometry.  We  often  discern  truth  without 
being  able  to  define  it.  One  who  clearly 
sees  the  truth  needs  no  choice  of  words 
to  express  it.  The  truth  will  be  in  him 
its  own  best  expression.  And  it  will  not 
be  the  man  who  is  speaking,  but  truth. 
We  lose  sight  of  the  man,  or  rather  the 
man  is  lost  sight  of  in  the  truth.  Truth 
has  become  incarnated  in  him.  He  has 
become  one  with  truth.  So  he  must  speak. 
With  every  fiber  of  muscle  and  every  drop 
of  blood  he  declares,  "Here  I  stand;  I  can 
not  do  otherwise,  so  help  me  God."  For 
truth  he  makes  a  vicarious  sacrifice.  The 
;world  may  howl  about  him ;  self -constituted 
15 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

judges  may  condemn;  and  self-appointed 
executioners  crucify.  But  he  stands  su- 
preme, the  self-expression  of  truth,  know- 
ing that  truth  will  prevail.  So  Jesus 
Christ  is  His  own  best  expression.  He 
has  worked  Himself  by  His  subtle  power 
and  commanding  force  into  the  lives  of  the 
world's  great  men,  and  hence  into  its  his- 
tory, its  art,  its  music,  its  literature.  We 
see  and  hear  and  read  Him  in  every  mas- 
terpiece of  art  and  music  and  poetry  which 
has  had  Him  for  its  subject.  These  with 
the  Gospel  record  form  the  composite  of 
the  living  Christ,  which  is  ineffaceable. 
We  see  and  recognize  Him  in  the  life  of 
every  saintly-minded  man  and  woman.  He 
is  incarnated  in  goodness,  purity,  love,  as 
these  find  actuality  in  human  words  and 
deeds. 

Furthermore,  truth  can  not  be  arrested 

in  its  progress.    We  may  pile  a  mountain 

of  error  upon  it  to  dam  its  course  and 

throttle  its  life,  as  now  and  then  a  moun- 

16 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  TEUTH. 

tain  of  earth  will  loosen  itself  in  the  Alps 
and  completely  block  the  course  of  a  rivu- 
let. But  in  a  few  days  here  and  there  a 
drop  of  water  will  begin  to  trickle  out  of 
the  ground,  then  a  few  seemingly  discon- 
nected threads  of  water  appear,  which  in 
a  little  while  become  united ;  then  the  earth 
begins  to  melt,  the  rivulet  throws  off  its 
grave-clothes  and  proceeds  into  life,  prais- 
ing God  and  blessing  man  as  before. 
Truth  undermines  the  mountains  of  error 
and  finds  its  way  to  freedom.  It  has  ever 
worked  itself  through,  and  men  have  seen 
it  emerging  out  of  the  chaos.  So  has  Jesus 
gone  on  unmolested.  As  we  shall  see  later, 
no  opposition  was  able  to  arrest  His 
progress.  Death  itself  could  not  hold  Him. 
He  is  as  present  in  the  world  to-day  as 
when  He  walked  the  hills  and  valleys  of 
Palestine. 

Again,  man  instinctively  bows  before 
the  truth.    He  sees  it,  he  is  overwhelmed, 

he  worships  it.    We  lay  aside  a  book  which 
2  17 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

has  revealed  the  truth  to  us,  and  we  tacitly 
assent  to  it.  "We  talk  to  a  man  of  com- 
manding genius,  and  all  our  little  knowl- 
edge fails  us,  we  bow  before  and  worship 
him.  We  are  not  made  smaller,  but  larger, 
for  having  seen  and  heard  him.  So  of 
Jesus.  The  wise  men  uttered  a  prophetic 
word  when  they  said,  ' i  Show  us  the  Child, 
for  we  have  seen  His  star  in  the  East  and 
have  come  to  worship  Him."  They  bow 
down  before  Him  and  lay  their  gifts  at 
His  feet.  Peter  says,  "Lord,  to  whom 
shall  we  go ;  Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal 
lifeT'  The  Greeks  say  to  Philip,  "Sir, 
we  would  see  Jesus.' '  Charles  Lamb  put 
the  seal  on  the  words  of  the  wise  men  in 
an  assembly  of  scholars  who  were  discuss- 
ing how  they  should  greet  certain  great 
men  of  the  past  were  they  suddenly  to 
come  into  their  presence.  If  Homer  or 
Shakespeare  should  come,  they  would  all 
rise.  Some  one  asked,  doubtless  irrever- 
ently, "But  what  if  Jesus  should  come?" 
18 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  TEUTH. 

Lamb  replied:  "0,  that  would  be  differ- 
ent. If  He  should  come  we  should  all 
kneel/ *■ 

Again,  truth  is  thrilling.  There  is  no 
enthusiasm  so  stimulating  and  real  as  that 
engendered  by  the  perception  of  a  great 
truth.  Men  are  "beside  themselves,"  we 
say,  as  they  enthusiastically  rave  over 
some  great  truth  new  to  them.  They  are 
beside  themselves  because  they  stand,  as 
it  were,  and  look  at  the  truth  in  themselves 
approaching  and  uniting  with  the  truth  at 
the  center  of  the  universe.  It  is  as  two 
worlds  coming  together.  The  sight  is  so 
overwhelming  that  man  for  the  moment  is 
rendered  almost  incoherent  of  speech.  It 
is  a  day  of  Pentecost  for  him  on  which  he 
hears  and  understands  a  strange  language. 
When  the  French  scholars  had  tested  New- 
ton's  discovery  of  the  law  of  gravitation, 
and  Newton  was  computing  the  results  and 
saw  his  theory  was  approaching  a  fact,  he 
became  strangely  excited.  The  figures,  the 
19 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

room,  began  to  dance  before  bis  eyes;  be 
was  undone,  and  needed  to  call  another  to 
finisb  tbe  computation.  ""Why  tbe  agita- 
tion ?"  asks  Emerson.  "Because  wben 
Newton  saw  in  tbe  fall  of  an  apple  to  tbe 
ground  tbe  fall  also  of  the  eartb  to  tbe 
sun,  of  the  sun  and  all  suns  to  tbe  center, 
that  perception  was  accompanied  by  a 
spasm  of  delight  by  which  the  intellect 
greets  a  fact  more  immense  still,  a  fact 
really  universal — holding  in  intellect  as  in 
matter,  in  morals  as  in  intellect — that  atom 
draws  to  atom  throughout  nature,  and 
truth  to  truth  throughout  spirit/ '  Men 
of  all  ages  have  been  similarly  thrilled  as 
they  have  grasped  the  claims  of  Jesus  in 
regard  to  the  truth.  On  the  day  of  Pente- 
cost the  many  who  went  almost  wild  at 
the  perception  of  the  truth  as  revealed  by 
Jesus  Christ  were  accused  of  being  filled 
with  new  wine.  Before  Agrippa,  Saint 
Paul  became  so  excited  as  he  preached 
Christ  to  this  kingly  audience,  that  Festus 
20 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  TEUTH. 

cried  to  him  with  a  loud  voice:  "Paul, 
thou  art  beside  thyself.  Too  much  learn- 
ing doth  make  thee  mad."  Luther  rose 
from  his  knees  as  he  was  climbing  the 
Scala  Santa  in  Eome  and  rushed  down  the 
steps  almost  in  a  frenzy  when  the  great 
truth  of  salvation  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ 
burst  upon  him.  The  Quakers  had  their 
convulsions,  the  Swedenborgians  their  il- 
luminations, the  Moravians  and  Pietists 
their  raptures,  the  Calvinists  their  quick- 
enings,  and  the  Methodists  their  revivals 
and  experiences,  simply  because  "of  that 
shudder  of  awe  and  delight  with  which  the 
individual  soul  always  mingles  with  the 
universal  soul. ' '  This  universal  soul  these 
men  considered  to  be  the  Christ.  For 
truth  and  Christ  to  them  were  one.  He 
was  the  true  Witness  to  the  truth.  He  was 
a  King  and  His  Kingdom  was  the  truth. 
These  and  many  other  analogies  are 
there  between  truth  and  Jesus.  "It  is  only 
by  being  loyal  and  helpful  to  the  truth,' ' 
21 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

said  Lowell,  "that  men  learn  at  last  how 
loyal  and  helpful  she  can  be  to  them. '  *  It 
is  only  by  being  loyal  and  helpful  to  Jesus 
Christ  that  we  learn  how  helpful  and  loyal 
He  can  be  to  us.  "If  ye  continue  in  My 
Word,  then  ye  are  My  disciples  indeed,  and 
ye  shall  know  the  truth  and  the  truth  shall 
make  you  free. ' ' 


n. 

THE  INVIOLABILITY  OF  TEUTH. 

There  were  several  attempts  made  to  do 
Jesus  bodily  harm.  In  the  beginning  of 
His  ministry  these  efforts  were  the  result 
of  a  violent  impulse  stirred  by  some  truth 
Jesus  spoke  which  was  not  agreeable  to 
His  hearers;  toward  the  close  of  His  min- 
istry, and  because  of  truths  Jesus  repeat- 
edly uttered  which  were  distasteful  to  the 
Jewish  leaders,  the  attacks  took  the  form 
of  a  well-designed  plan  to  do  away  with 
Him.  All  these  attempts  came  to  naught, 
and  for  a  reason  Jesus  Himself  gave — 
■"My  time  is  not  yet  come."  When  His 
time  was  come  they  took  Him  and  led  Him 
forth  to  execution,  but  only  because  He 
was  obedient  to  His  Father's  will. 
23 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  His  ministry, 
the  first  time  and,  as  it  happened,  also  the 
last  that  He  appeared  publicly  in  His 
own  home,  the  people  were  filled  with 
wrath  when  He  told  them  the  truth  about 
themselves.  "And  they  rose  up,  and  cast 
Him  forth  out  of  the  city,  and  led  Him 
to  the  brow  of  the  hill  whereon  their  city 
was  built,  that  they  might  throw  Him  down 
headlong.  But  He,  passing  through  the 
midst  of  them,  went  His  way." 

There  was  something  about  His  person 
that  kept  the  hands  of  men  off  Him  when 
they  would  have  done  Him  harm.  It  was 
as  impossible  to  soil  or  obstruct  Him  as 
it  is  to  sully  or  retard  a  sunbeam.  The 
men  of  those  days  could  raise  obstacles  to 
keep  Jesus  out  of  their  midst,  but  they 
could  not  keep  His  influence  from  spread- 
ing. When  they  would  take  Him,  He 
passed  through  the  midst  of  them  and  went 
His  way. 

As  we  see  Jesus  going  through  that 
24 


THE  INVIOLABILITY  OF  TRUTH. 

angry  crowd  and  continuing  His  way  un- 
harmed we  are  impressed  with  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  act  and  follow  Him,  not  only 
down  to  Capernaum  and  hither  and  thither 
over  Palestine,  on  up  to  Golgotha  and  the 
cross,  but  also  from  Joseph's  tomb  out  into 
the  wide  world,  striding  over  the  centuries, 
meeting  every  obstacle  and  going  through 
it  unharmed,  until  the  Man  is  lost  in  the 
truth,  and  the  truth  which  He  promul- 
gates prevails ;  in  a  word,  until  Jesus  and 
His  truth  become  one.  We  study  Him  and 
He  leads  us  out  into  the  truth;  we  search 
for  the  truth  and  it  leads  us  back  to  Him. 
He  going  through  all  hostile  and  warring 
elements  unharmed  is  but  the  figure  of  His 
truth  penetrating  all  error  and  proceeding 
on  its  conquering  way. 

When  we  look  at  truth  in  this  light  we 
find  its  analogy  with  Jesus  holding  good. 
The  Jews  did  not  receive  His  message  be- 
cause they  were  not  prepared  for  it.  This 
lack  of  preparation  was  their  own  fault. 
25 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

They  did  not  want  to  accept  His  teaching. 
They  were  so  engrained  with  their  own 
doctrine  that  the  least  suggested  variance 
from  it  was  an  affront  too  great  for  them 
to  bear.  So  they  cried,  "Away  with  this 
blasphemer!"  They  did  not  stop  to  in- 
quire whether  or  not  they  in  their  manner 
of  belief  and  mode  of  living  had  really  be- 
come blasphemers  themselves  and  were 
desecrating  the  Holy  Word  of  God.  They 
were  too  blinded  and  too  perverse  to  study 
the  teachings  of  the  Scriptures  calmly  and 
candidly,  and  compare  them,  first  with 
their  own  doctrine  and  practice,  and  then 
with  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus,  to 
see  whether  He  or  they  were  at  fault.  It 
would  have  taken  too  much  of  their  time 
and  robbed  them  of  too  much  of  their  ease 
to  have  pursued  this  course.  They  were 
satisfied  to  look  to  their  own  leaders  for 
authority  and  like  them,  too,  to  live  a  life 
of  selfishness  and  abandon  which  bordered 
very  near  upon  the  dissolute.  Jesus  could 
26 


THE  INVIOLABILITY  OF  TBUTH. 

never  have  reached  these  people.  Their 
hearts  were  hardened.  All  He  could  do 
was  to  pass  through  their  midst  and  go 
on  His  way. 

There  were  others,  however,  who  re- 
ceived Jesus  gladly  and  accepted  His  mes- 
sage. These  listened  to  His  word  with 
open  ears  and  at  first  hand,  and  not  with 
a  wall  of  precedent  and  tradition  between 
them  and  Him.  They  were  looking  for 
life,  not  dogma ;  they  were  willing  to  judge 
according  to  the  spirit  and  not  on  the 
technicality  of  the  law.  They  were  simple 
fishermen,  not  trained  jurists.  They  could 
see  with  the  open  eyes  of  life  because  they 
were  not  blinded  by  rule  or  resolution. 
They  were  then,  and  they  will  remain  for- 
ever, the  pattern  of  open  and  broad  mind- 
edness,  the  result  of  an  honest  effort  to 
receive  the  truth,  from  whatever  quarter 
it  comes,  even  although  it  be  despised 
Nazareth. 

As  the  Jews  refused  Jesus'  message 
27 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

because  they  were  not  ready  or  willing  to 
throw  off  the  crust  of  fixed  doctrinal  pro- 
cedure and  belief,  so  do  we  find  at  various 
epochs  of  history  a  similar  disinclination 
to  investigate  and  accept  the  truth.  Take, 
for  example,  a  most  familiar  illustration: 
the  revolution  in  thought  the  Copernican 
astronomy  necessitated.  That  the  sun 
moved  and  the  earth  stood  still  was  the 
belief  of  the  most  enlightened  men  until  the 
famous  Prussian,  only  a  little  more  than 
three  hundred  and  eighty  years  ago,  told 
them  otherwise.  Here  was  a  new  phase 
of  truth,  a  message  from  the  heavens, 
which  made  the  rulers  of  the  Church  so 
angry  that  they  would  have  cast  it  down 
headlong  over  the  brow  of  the  hill  whereon 
their  intellectual  city  was  built.  But  pass- 
ing through  their  midst,  it  went  its  way. 
The  Church  could  put  a  ban  upon  all  who 
believed  that  the  earth  revolved  around  the 
sun ;  it  could,  for  instance,  compel  the  great 
Galileo  by  inquisition  to  abjure  his  ac- 
28 


THE  INVIOLABILITY  OF  TRUTH. 

ceptance  of  this  important  discovery,  but 
it  could  not  arrest  the  word  of  truth. 

The  Church  leaders  sought  to  hush  up 
the  truth  which  revolutionized  the  thought 
of  men  because  they  were  not  prepared  for 
it.  Their  system  was  so  small  and  so  nar- 
row that  it  had  absolutely  no  expansive 
potentiality.  So  far  could  they  go.  When 
they  came  to  the  edge  they  must  either 
pitch  themselves  down  into  the  abyss  of 
darkness,  or  build  up  barriers  on  the 
border  of  their  belief  which  would  keep 
them  from  falling  over  and  also  give  them 
a  purchase  to  throw  all  who  did  not  agree 
with  them  into  the  bottomless  gulf.  The 
message  of  Copernicus  was  a  "new" 
truth.  It  set  all  their  cherished  dogmas, 
all  their  fixed  forms  of  belief,  in  disorder ; 
to  accept  it  would  necessitate  the  complete 
readjustment  of  their  accepted  views. 
Tradition  would  have  to  be  discredited. 
The  ponderous  volumes  which  had  been 
based  upon  it  would  not  even  be  good  ma- 
29 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

terial  for  fuel.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  that  the  Church  fathers  were  alarmed 
and  were  out  hunting  for  heretics.  The 
tranquil  calm  of  the  monasteries  dared  not 
be  disturbed  or  the  peace  of  the  communi- 
cants upset.  For  if  Corpernicus  was  right 
the  Church  was  wrong.  What  a  calamity 
this  would  have  been:  the  Church  forced 
to  admit  it  was  in  error! 

The  truth  went  on  its  way,  however, 
quietly  and  persistently ;  unconcerned  with 
the  opposition  and  not  hindered  by  it. 
There  were  minds  prepared  to  receive  it, 
minds  which,  even  at  the  risk  of  persecu- 
tion and  death,  would  not  shrink  from  look- 
ing for  truth  wherever  it  could  be  found. 
These  minds — and  let  us  not  forget  to  em- 
phasize the  fact — represented  the  true 
spirit  of  the  Church  and  enabled  the 
Church  in  a  marvelously  quick  and  a  won- 
drously  quiet  way  to  adjust  itself  to  this 
stupendous  revolution.  As  a  result  we 
have  an  immeasurably  expanded  world;  a 
30 


THE  INVIOLABILITY  OF  TETTTH. 

God  raised  to  the  millionth  power  in  wis- 
dom and  skill,  worthy  of  man's  profound- 
est  thought  and  veneration ;  and  man  him- 
self lifted  into  an  exalted  dignity  not  to 
be  measured  because  of  his  prerogatives 
and  possibilities. 

Or,  turning  from  the  field  of  astronomy 
to  that  of  biology :  It  was  only  a  few  years 
ago  that  the  theory  of  evolution  was  be- 
ing everywhere  decried  and  denounced 
from  the  pulpit.  Darwin's  name  was 
anathema  in  every  devout  home.  Even 
two  such  books  as  "The  Ascent  of  Man" 
and  "Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual 
World,"  by  so  deeply  a  religious  and  help- 
ful a  writer  as  Henry  Drummond  were 
looked  upon  as  an  incarnation  of  evil. 
Many  a  good  minister  was  crying,  * '  0,  that 
men  should  put  such  poison  in  the  minds 
of  our  youth  to  steal  away  their  religious 
susceptibilities!"  What  were  the  facts? 
Darwin  vitalized  a  theory  of  far-reaching 
importance  to  all  forms  of  life,  whether 
31 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

vegetable,  animal,  or  human.  This  theory 
had  a  religious  significance  of  which  Dar- 
win did  not  even  dream.  He  neither  ap- 
preciated nor  understood  it,  and  had  the 
religious  aspects  of  his  theory  been  left 
to  him  for  their  solution,  faith  in  an  all- 
wise  and  provident  God  would  have  been 
annihilated.  But  there  were  others  who 
saw  the  bearing  of  this  new  phase  of  truth, 
a  phase  which  could  not  be  routed  by  pul- 
pit storming.  They  began  to  apply  it  in 
the  religious  field  and  to  give  it  its  proper 
place  and  significance.  One  of  the  greatest 
of  these  harmonists  in  his  day  was  Drum- 
mond,  a  recognized  scientist,  a  deeply  re- 
ligious man,  and  a  fervent  teacher.  He 
took  the  theory  of  evolution  and  applied 
it  to  the  spiritual  life  with  the  result  that 
instead  of  causing  men  to  lose  their  faith, 
he  gave  them  ample  field  for  intelligent 
and  consistent  belief  in  the  ultimate  reali- 
ties. He  proclaimed  a  God  who  not  only 
brought  an  orderly  world  out  of  chaos,  but 
32 


THE  INVIOLABILITY  OF  TEUTH. 

who  created  man  in  His  own  image  and 
sent  a  Christ  into  the  world  to  help  man 
maintain  and  not  mar  that  image.  Evo- 
lution, when  rightly  understood  as  a 
method  of  progression,  and  not  as  the 
cause  of  being,  is  a  vital  truth,  and  as  such 
it  will  pass  through  all  opposition  and 
proceed  upon  its  way.  It  does  not  attempt 
to  solve  the  fact  of  creation:  it  deals 
merely  with  the  ongoing,  never  with  the 
beginning  of  the  world  or  of  the  origin  of 
man.  Hence  in  no  wise  does  it  destroy  our 
belief  that  an  eternal  God  breathed  and 
breathes  into  man  the  breath  of  life,  and 
that  an  all-nierciful  Father  cares  for  and 
watches  over  him. 

There  were  some  who  were  not  pre- 
pared to  receive  this  new  phase  of  truth 
because  they  were  held  fast  in  the  seduc- 
tive arms  of  tradition  and  precedent. 
They  were  not  willing  to  undertake  a  re- 
adjustment of  their  mental  belief  to  the 
demands  of  physical  and  spiritual  fact. 
3  33 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

To-day  there  are  a  few  such  who  continue 
to  make  a  great  noise  declaiming  against 
"new  truth."  But  the  real  spirit  of  the 
Church  has  been  quick  to  recognize  and  to 
respond  to  the  inevitable.  To-day  the  the- 
ory of  evolution,  as  a  divine  method  of 
procedure,  is  accepted  as  a  welcome  aid 
in  the  teaching  of  spiritual  truth.  Thus 
does  truth  go  on  its  way  unmolested. 
Sooner  or  later  man  must  bow  to  it.  In 
every  era  when  new  discoveries  are  made, 
and  new  interpretations  are  given  in  all 
lines  of  thought,  and  there  seems  to  be 
more  or  less  unsettling  of  established  be- 
liefs and  fear  is  engendered  which  develops 
into  a  rage  and  attempts  are  made  to  an- 
nihilate the  new  views  of  truth,  there  is 
only  one  rule  to  follow — that  laid  down  by 
the  learned  Pharisee  and  doctor  of  the  law, 
Gamaliel,  when  the  Jews  would  have  put 
Peter  and  those  who  were  with  him  to 
death.  "Befrain  from  these  men  and  let 
them  alone,"  Gamaliel  said,  "for  if  their 
34 


THE  INVIOLABILITY  OF  TKUTH. 

counsel  or  their  work  be  of  men  it  will  be 
overthrown,  but  if  it  is  of  God,  ye  will  not 
be  able  to  overthrow  it  lest  haply  ye  be 
found  to  be  fighting  even  against  God." 
Persecution  and  bloodshed  in  the  early 
years  of  Christianity,  frenzy  and  humilia- 
tion in  the  later  years,  would  have  been 
spared  had  this  advice  been  followed. 
Truth  is  as  immune  from  all  hostile  at- 
tack as  Jesus  was  when,  passing  through 
the  midst  of  that  angry  mob  on  the  brow 
of  Nazareth's  hill,  He  went  on  His  way. 

Jesus  went  on  His  way,  but  it  was  al- 
ways through  opposition.  Every  advance 
of  truth  has  met  the  same  condition. 
There  is  always  the  same  disinclination  to 
be  led  by  truth  as  it  is  perceived  in  some 
new  phase ;  the  same  persistent  holding  on 
to  old  forms  of  belief  when  these  have  been 
outgrown;  the  same  stress  through  which 
Christ's  Church  must  go  because  some  of 
its  leaders  refuse  to  walk  in  the  unmistak- 
able light  of  approved  research.  "Some 
35 


THE  ASSUBANCE  OF  FAITH. 

modern  zealots,"  said  Dean  Swift,  more 
than  a  hundred  years  ago, ' '  appear  to  have 
no  better  knowledge  of  truth  nor  better 
manner  of  judging  it  than  by  counting 
noses.' 9  As  though  a  vote  for  or  against 
truth  would  decide  anything.  Again  it  is 
to  be  noted,  as  Goethe  has  said,  that  it  is 
"always  the  individual  not  the  age  that 
stands  up  for  truth."  The  pages  of  his- 
tory show  us  not  a  Church  or  a  people  or 
a  nation  holding  for  progressive  truth,  but 
an  individual  in  the  Church  or  State  or 
among  the  people.  "The  State  must  fol- 
low and  not  lead  the  character  and  prog- 
ress of  the  citizen,"  declared  Emerson. 
This  is  true  of  any  organized  institution. 
There  always  is  the  danger  of  men  becom- 
ing tangled  up  in  the  rules  and  technicali- 
ties of  administration. 

".Truth  does  not  conform  itself  to  us." 

If  we  are  not  agreeable  to  it,  it  passes  on 

its  way.    "We  must  conform  ourselves  to 

it."     What  truth  is  remains  a  problem. 

36 


THE  INVIOLABILITY  OF  TKUTH. 

None  of  us  in  the  conflicting  opinions  of 
life  may  be  wise  enough  to  see  and  grasp 
it.  Time  is  the  best  revelator  of  truth. 
After  we  have  climbed  a  hill  we  have  a 
better  knowledge  of  the  country  by  look- 
ing back  over  it  than  we  had  when  coming 
through  it.  The  comprehension  of  truth, 
however,  is  not  so  much  a  matter  of  in- 
sight or  learning  as  it  is  of  attitude.  We 
may  be  utterly  unable  to  grasp  the  eternal 
truths  that  lie  at  the  center  of  Being.  And 
yet  as  we  have  a  right  attitude  to  those 
truths  we  unconsciously  become  a  part  of 
their  unfolding.  The  Almighty  has  created 
a  world  obedient  to  His  command.  The 
psalmist,  speaking  from  the  dictates  of  his 
soul,  no  less  truly  declares  this  than  the 
scientist  who  lays  before  us  the  result  of 
his  experimentation.  The  Almighty  has 
also  created  man,  not  who  must,  but  who 
may  be  obedient  to  Him.  Man's  concep- 
tion and  perception  of  the  truth  depend 
on  the  ratio  of  his  obedience  to  the  Al- 
37 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

mighty.  He  is  not  left  without  a  guide 
as  to  what  is  obedience.  There  are  cer- 
tain dictates  and  promptings  of  his  inner 
nature  which  declare  to  him  in  no  uncer- 
tain way  whether  or  not  he  has  been  obe- 
dient. The  certainty  of  this  monition  de- 
pends upon  the  alacrity  with  which  man 
follows  it.  With  him  rests  the  power  of 
keeping  it  keenly  awake  to  all  his  needs 
or  allowing  it  to  become  blunted  and  dull. 
As  he  obeys  he  finds  voices,  not  only  within, 
but  without,  that  speak  to  him  and  he  can 
follow  with  firm  footsteps  upon  a  well- 
defined  way. 

Obedience,  conformity,  must  be  the  at- 
titude of  man  to  the  truth.  As  he  thus 
walks  his  horizon  will  be  a  widening  one, 
man  and  nature  will  spread  out  the  pages 
of  truth  before  him,  unto  him  will  be  given 
the  mystery  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The 
parables  of  this  world  will  be  clear  to  him, 
for  he  is  within  the  Kingdom  and  can  un- 
derstand the  symbol  of  its  language.  To 
38 


THE  INVIOLABILITY  OF  TEUTH. 

change  the  figure,  he  is  in  the  temple  of 
life  and  can  look  upon  the  right  side  of  the 
pictures  in  the  windows  which  to  them  who 
are  without  mean  nothing.  If  we  have  this 
attitude  to  the  truth,  all  other  things  which 
we  are  able  to  bear  will  be  added  unto  us. 
If  we  have  not  this  attitude,  the  Lord  of 
all  truth  will  surely  pass  through  our  midst 
and  go  on  His  way. 


39 


III. 

SYMBOLS  OF   SPIRITUAL  TKUTH. 

One  of  the  most  pronounced  facts  in  the 
study  of  religious  phenomena  is  man  ever 
striving  to  know  God.  The  face  of  God  is 
veiled,  His  lips  are  mute;  yet  man  seeks 
to  lift  the  veil  and  speak  with  God  face 
to  face.  Here  is  a  task  which  may  seem  as 
impossible  as  the  task  of  emptying  the 
ocean.  Yet  man  persists  in  his  quest.  Gen- 
erations come  and  go,  centuries  wax  old 
and  are  born,  no  man  or  age  has  dared 
to  claim  that  the  limits  of  the  finite  have 
been  exceeded  and  the  presence  of  the 
Eternal  invaded.  Still  man  pushes  his  in- 
quiry: "What  hath  the  Lord  answered? 
And  what  hath  the  Lord  said?" 

A  phenomenon  so  great  as  this  must 
40 


SYMBOLS  OF  SPIEITUAL  TRUTH. 

have  an  explanation.  We  find  it  in  the 
universal  concensus  of  thoughtful  men. 
Not  the  fact  of  absolutely  knowing  is  the 
principle  or  final  or  directive  considera- 
tion, but  the  spirit  of  trying  to  know.  This 
spirit  is  the  essential  element  in  all  our 
thinking  and  doing,  and  relegates  mere 
knowledge,  as  such,  to  the  background. 
The  quest  of  knowledge  can  never  end  in 
accomplishment,  it  must  express  itself  as 
an  attitude.  The  ocean  of  knowledge  is 
deep  and  wide,  but  man  must  content  him- 
self with  his  dipperful.  In  the  very  atti- 
tude of  seeking  to  know,  however,  lies 
man's  hope.  For  sufficient  unto  his  needs 
is  the  knowledge  which  by  striving  he  will 
be  able  to  control. 

In  any  investigation  the  facts  must  first 
be  known  and  then  properly  construed. 
The  latter  is  the  important  thing.  In  or- 
dinary conversation  where  the  subject 
turns  on  what  another  is  supposed  to  have 
said,  it  is  important,  of  course,  to  know 
41 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

what  was  actually  said.  But  even  more 
important  than  what  was  actually  said  is 
to  learn  what  was  meant.  A  statement 
may  be  accurately  reported  and  give  a 
certain  impression.  But  associated  with 
other  statements  made  at  the  same  time 
the  statement  may  demand  quite  another 
construction.  A  few  sentences  of  a  con- 
versation taken  out  of  their  connection  can 
not  be  made  the  sole  basis  of  a  judgment. 
Again,  circumstances  may  be  involved  the 
knowledge  of  which  might  lead  at  once  to 
the  conclusion  that  what  was  said  was  not 
meant.  For  instance,  the  person  speaking 
might  have  been  under  a  great  mental  or 
physical  or  emotional  strain  which  might 
have  colored  his  words  with  a  different 
meaning;  or  he  may  have  certain  consti- 
tutional peculiarities  which  need  to  be 
taken  into  account  in  construing  the 
meaning  or  worth  of  his  words,  or  his  en- 
vironment at  home  or  in  business  or  pro- 
fessional life  may  be  such  as  to  require  a 
42 


SYMBOLS  OF  SPIEITUAL  TRUTH. 

different    interpretation     of    his     actual 
words. 

We  can  not  depend  only  upon  the  actual 
words  used  for  the  formation  of  our  judg- 
ments. In  fact,  it  is  usual  for  us  to  give 
our  words  a  different  meaning  than  the 
dictionaries  set  forth.  To  know  the  ex- 
act meaning  of  words  is  no  surety  that  we 
shall  grasp  the  thought  they  are  intended 
to  express.  For  this  reason  we  can  not 
translate  a  foreign  language  merely  with 
a  dictionary.  We  can  not  repeat  in  Eng- 
lish what  a  German  or  French  or  Greek 
author  has  said  until  we  have  appreciated 
the  spirit  in  which  he  was  writing.  When 
we  have  entered  into  his  spirit  we  can 
reproduce  his  meaning  without  accurately 
translating  his  words.  Even  in  our  own 
language  we  may  know  the  dictionary 
meaning  of  every  word  a  writer  uses  and 
yet  not  grasp  his  thought.  This  becomes 
quite  clear  when  we  take  the  most  simple 
examples.  In  rhetoric  there  are  certain 
43 


THE  ASSUBANCE  OF  FAITH. 

technical  terms  which  describe  our  habitual 
usage  of  words  in  other  than  their  usual 
signification.  We  say,  for  example,  a  con- 
tractor employed  several  new  hands,  when 
we  mean  workmen.  We  have  innumerable 
expressions  which  we  use  as  substitutions 
for  the  word  death.  But  however  vague 
they  may  be  so  far  as  the  dictionary  is 
concerned,  we  readily  understand  the 
meaning  intended.  One  reason  why  slang 
is  so  expressive  is  simply  because  certain 
words  and  expressions  ridiculous  in  them- 
selves are  given  a  figurative  sense  that 
aptly  apply  to  certain  conditions.  For  ex- 
ample, the  antics  of  a  goat  attributed  to  a 
man  who  is  always  interrupting  a  conver- 
sation. 

Much  of  our  poetry  would  be  devoid  of 
meaning  if  we  were  unable  to  understand 
the  figurative  and  derivative  use  of  lan- 
guage. Take  the  oft-quoted  first  line  of 
the  poem,  " Ships  that  pass  in  the  night." 
What  does  the  fact  say?  Two  ships  meet 
U 


SYMBOLS  OF  SPIRITUAL  TRUTH. 

in  the  dark  of  night,  signal  each  other,  and 
pass  on  each  her  own  way.  What  does  the 
fact  mean?  Simply  that  thus  we  meet  in 
life,  live  together  for  a  greater  or  less 
period  of  time,  and  then  separate,  hoping 
some  day  to  anchor  in  the  same  port.  Take 
those  inspired  words  of  Tennyson,  "Cross- 
ing the  Bar."  "What  does  he  mean  when 
he  says,  "May  there  be  no  moaning  of  the 
bar  when  I  put  out  to  sea?"  or 

Twilight  and  evening  bell, 

And  after  that  the  dark; 
And  may  there  be  no  sadness  of 
farewell, 

When  I  embark ; 

For  tho'  from  out  our  bourne  of 
Time  and  Place 

The  flood  may  bear  me  far, 
I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face 

When  I  have  crost  the  bar. 

If  we  take  his  words  in  their  dictionary 
meaning  we  should  be  as  images  of  stone 
and  wood  that  have  eyes  but  see  not,  and 

45 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

ears  but  hear  not,  and  hands  but  handle 
not.  Or  take  those  equally  inspired  words 
of  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson : 

In  winter  I  get  up  at  night 
And  dress  by  yellow  candle  light; 
In  summer  quite  the  other  way, 
I  have  to  go  to  bed  by  day. 

I  have  to  go  to  bed  and  see 
The  birds  still  hopping  on  the  tree 
Or  hear  the  grown-up  people's  feet 
Still  going  past  me  in  the  street. 

And  does  it  not  seem  hard  to  you 
When  all  the  sky  is  clear  and  blue, 
And  I  should  like  so  much  to  play, 
To  have  to  go  to  bed  by  day  ? 

If  we  read  these  lines  with  the  dictionary 
or  with  the  memory  of  our  childhood  when 
we  were  put  to  bed  that  way,  we  will  have 
a  meaning  of  the  poem,  but  only  a  super- 
ficial meaning.  If  we  read  the  lines  with 
a  knowledge  of  the  man  who  wrote  them: 
see  him  fighting  a  losing  battle  from  his 
very  youth  against  that  dread  disease  con- 
46 


SYMBOLS  OF  SPIEITUAL  TRUTH. 

sumption,  see  him  working  with  a  deter- 
mination and  an  indef  atigability  until  work 
to  him  had  become  as  natural  as  play,  see 
him  taken  away  in  the  summertime  of  life 
when  he  could  still  see  the  happy  birds 
hopping  on  the  tree,  and  hear  the  grown-up 
people's  feet  passing  by,  the  feet  of  those 
far  older  than  he  in  years  who  still  had 
strength  and  long  life  before  them — the 
whole  poem  takes  on  a  different  meaning. 

And  does  it  not  seem  hard  to  you 
When  all  the  sky  is  clear  and  blue, 
And  I  should  like  so  much  to  play, 
To  have  to  go  to  bed  by  day? 

What  the  poet  says  is  important,  what 
he  means  is  more  so,  but  most  of  all  is 
the  disposition  of  the  reader  to  understand 
what  he  says  and  appreciate  what  he 
means.  For  back  of  the  man  who  writes 
is  the  spirit  that  prompts  the  mind  and 
heart  to  appreciate,  and  the  spirit  of  the 
one  must  be  in  sympathy  with  the  spirit 
of  the  other.  The  poet  must  have  a  feel- 
47 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

ing  of  what  is  universal  in  the  soul-life  of 
other  men  and  the  other  men  must  have 
a  feeling  of  that  universal,  that  eternal  in 
themselves,  else  the  poet  can  not  write  or 
the  layman  read. 

I  have  said  sufficient,  doubtless,  to  show 
that  our  language  is  a  picture  language, 
full  of  images  and  symbols,  and  that 
we  can  not  understand  it  unless  we  know 
the  meaning  of  the  images  and  pictures 
and  symbols.  The  pictures  on  the  Egyp- 
tian monuments  look  quite  infantile  to  us, 
but  when  we  begin  to  appreciate  what  the 
birds  and  lions  and  men  and  crowns  and 
crosses  and  leaves  stand  for  we  begin  to 
read  a  language  with  wonderful  expressive 
power  and  marvel  at  the  high  degree  of 
culture  in  that  day.  So  the  essayist  and 
story  teller  and  public  speaker  win  their 
great  triumphs  to-day  as  they  are  able  to 
draw  word  pictures  for  their  readers  and 
auditors  and  by  this  means  reach  the  soul- 
depths  of  men  and  women.  Massillon,  the 
48 


SYMBOLS  OF  SPIEITUAL  TKUTH. 

great  French  preacher,  by  drawing  a  word- 
picture  of  the  imminent  and  inevitable 
doom  for  the  sinful  made  the  courtiers  of 
Louis  XIV  leap  to  their  feet  in  terror,  feel- 
ing that  the  judgment  day  was  actually 
upon  them.  William  Dawson,  an  early 
Wesleyan  preacher,  pictured  so  realistic- 
ally the  return  of  the  prodigal  from  the 
far  country  that  his  hearers  involuntarily 
turned  their  eyes  to  the  door  expecting  to 
see  him  enter.  Father  Taylor,  as  has  been 
so  often  related,  described  a  storm  at  sea 
with  such  wonderful  effect  that  a  sailor  in 
the  audience  jumped  up  and  exclaimed, 
"For  God's  sake,  man  the  lifeboat !"  A 
strong,  impassioned  plea  was  recently 
made  for  the  dignity  and  majesty  and 
sovereignty  of  the  laws  of  one  of  our  Com- 
monwealths against  irresponsible  agita- 
tion. These,  among  others,  were  the  words 
used:  "As  well  say  that  the  mighty  crags 
of  the  mountains  heaved  up  from  the  gran- 
ite of  the  bosom  of  the  earth  itself  shall 
4  49 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

yield  and  give  way  and  be  swept  into  ob- 
livion by  the  clouds  that  form  and  drift 
and  drive  at  the  behest  of  the  wind  over 
the  peaks  of  these  eternal  hills."  And 
what  do  we  see?  As  the  granite  mountains 
stand  there  firmly  imbedded  in  spite  of  the 
winds  and  storms  that  blow  over  their  sum- 
mits, so  stand  law  and  order  and  justice, 
rearing  their  summits  to  the  eternal 
heavens,  while  the  noise  and  clamor  of 
irresponsible  and  sensational  agitation 
break  over  them  and  die  as  the  mists. 

This  leads  us  to  our  point:  The  sym- 
bols of  spiritual  truth.  Our  religious  vo- 
cabulary, just  as  the  other  words  we  use, 
is  made  up  of  images.  We  take  our  ideas 
from  the  material  and  visible  things  about 
us  to  express  the  invisible  and  immate- 
rial. As  the  Egyptians  in  the  infancy  of 
language  drew  pictures  of  an  eagle  or  a 
lion  or  a  lotus  or  papyrus  branch  to  ex- 
press their  ideas,  and  as  we  teach  children 
their  lessons  in  a  similar  way  with  objects 
50 


SYMBOLS  OF  SPIRITUAL  TRUTH. 

and  words  of  derived  meaning,  so  is  spir- 
itual truth  inculcated,  and  in  order  to  learn 
we  must  become  as  children.  An  elaborate 
discussion  of  the  process  is  not  necessary. 
What  has  already  been  said  is  suggestive 
of  all  that  can  be  said  on  the  question. 
Our  religious  language  to-day  has  refer- 
ence, not  to  objects  and  circumstances  and 
customs  of  to-day  or  even  of  a  century 
ago,  but  of  the  time  when  our  Bible  was 
in  the  making.  The  Old  Testament  de- 
scribes God  as  a  fortress,  a  dwelling-place 
for  His  people,  a  rock,  a  sun,  a  shield,  He 
covers  His  saints  with  His  feathers,  the 
righteous  rest  under  His  wings,  they 
abide  under  His  shadow.  He  walks  in  the 
garden  in  the  cool  of  evening  to  spy  out 
an  offender,  He  sits  in  the  heavens  and 
laughs  at  sinners  and  has  them  in  deri- 
sion, He  repents  that  He  made  man  and 
undertakes  to  confuse  his  mind  and  con- 
found his  speech.  All  these  statements 
so  far  as  the  dictionary  is  concerned  are 
51 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

misstatements  of  fact  and  some  of  them 
are  mutually  contradictory.  But  it  would 
be  a  dull-witted  man  indeed  who  should 
not  understand  their  figurative  and  de- 
rived meaning  and  be  able  to  form  an  ade- 
quate idea  of  what  the  Old  Testament 
writers  thought  of  God. 

In  the  New  Testament  the  case  is  some- 
what different.  Here  the  writers  were 
striving  to  set  forth  the  objective  value 
of  Jesus  as  the  Savior  of  man,  and  hence 
needed  to  use  the  language  and  illustra- 
tion of  their  day.  Their  language  is 
therefore  pictorial,  dramatic,  metaphor- 
ical, relative.  The  two  sources  from  which 
they  draw  their  illustrations  are  Jewish 
ceremonial  and  Eoman  law.  The  altar 
whereon  animal  sacrifice  was  made,  the 
temple  where  vows  were  undertaken  and 
obligations  performed,  the  market  where 
slaves  were  redeemed  and  prisoners  were 
ransomed,  the  cross  on  which  criminals 
were  nailed — all  play  an  important  part  in 
52 


SYMBOLS  OF  SPIRITUAL  TRUTH. 

the  scheme  of  salvation.  Christ  is  a  sac- 
rifice and  propitiation  for  our  sins.  He 
is  the  sacrificial  Lamb  that  taketh  away 
the  sins  of  the  world,  He  gives  His  life  a 
ransom  for  many,  He  dies  on  the  cross 
and  hence  becomes  the  Redeemer  of  the 
world.  This  language  was  necessary,  and 
is  without  objection  for  us  to-day  if  we 
set  ourselves  to  understand  it.  We  do  not 
disparage  the  use  of  old  terms  as  long  as 
they  have  their  proper  meaning,  and  we 
will  continue  to  use  them  until  better  and 
clearer  words  come  into  use.  But  we  re- 
pudiate these  words  as  soon  as  they  are 
falsely  interpreted.  A  generation  ago  the 
legal  aspect  of  the  atonement  was  carried 
to  such  an  extent  that  God  was  represented 
as  sitting  as  a  judge  in  a  courtroom,  a 
prisoner  guilty  of  a  crime  has  been  con- 
victed, the  judge  demands  the  full  penalty 
of  the  law,  but  his  son,  innocent  and  spot- 
less, steps  forward  and  says,  "  Father,  I 
will  pay  the  penalty."  And  the  father 
53 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

executes  him  in  the  place  of  the  criminal. 
Such  a  travesty  on  divine  love  and  jus- 
tice we  can  not  tolerate.  Yet  much  of 
the  discussion  on  the  atonement  is  vitiated 
by  just  such  an  excrescence  of  thought  as 
this. 

What  John  and  Paul  and  James  and 
Peter  and  especially  the  writer  to  the 
Hebrews  wrote  is  one  thing,  what  they 
meant  is  quite  another,  and  the  spirit  in 
which  we  receive  what  they  wrote  and*  try 
to  understand  what  they  said  is  still  an- 
other. Only  as  we  cultivate  a  right  spirit 
do  their  words  become  real  and  vivid  and 
life-giving.  It  is  Jesus  who  helps  us  to 
cultivate  this  spirit.  To  His  words  we  go 
for  final  direction  and  authority.  We  find 
Him,  not  like  the  Gospel  writers,  using 
illustrations  from  the  Jewish  Church  and 
Eoman  law,  the  meaning  of  which  would 
be  limited  to  their  particular  time,  but 
using  illustrations  like  most  of  the  Old 
Testament  writers  that  are  adapted  to  all 
54 


SYMBOLS  OF  SPIRITUAL  TRUTH. 

times  and  conditions.  He  took  such  terms 
as  were  familiar  and  with  these  He  built 
His  figures  and  symbols  of  spiritual  truth. 
He  draws  analogies  between  things  natural 
and  things  spiritual,  between  one,  e.  g., 
who  is  negligent  and  hence  left  out  in  the 
cold,  dark  night,  and  one  who  is  prudent 
and  hence  admitted  into  the  brilliantly 
lighted  hall  and  merry  feast.  With  such 
exquisite  analogies  He  "utters  things 
which  have  been  hidden  from  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world. ' '  The  wise  and  the  fool- 
ish virgins,  the  profitable  and  unprofitable 
servants,  the  heartless  clergy  and  the  char- 
itable Samaritan,  Dives  and  Lazarus,  the 
Pharisee  and  the  Publican,  the  widow's 
mite  and  the  rich  man's  gift,  all  explain 
the  way  of  the  higher  life  and  set  forth 
the  laws  of  God's  Kingdom.  The  facts  of 
every-day  life  reveal  the  conditions  and 
reality  of  everlasting  life  and  bring  God 
to  man  as  a  loving  and  caring  Father. 
Jesus  is  the  Supreme  Painter  of  word 
55 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

pictures  and  thus  must  spiritual  truth 
come  to  us.  Some  did  not  understand 
Him.  Even  His  disciples  at  times  were 
in  doubt.  But  to  those  who  asked  He  ex- 
plained, and  what  the  Lord  said  became 
clear.  It  became  clear  because  there  was 
the  disposition  to  hear  what  was  said  and 
to  understand  what  was  meant.  Those  who 
had  not  this  spirit  could  not  understand 
Him.  He  rebuked  the  Pharisees  once  with 
the  words:  "Why  do  ye  not  understand 
My  speech?  Even  because  ye  can  not  hear 
My  words.' '  They  would  not  stay  to  cul- 
tivate a  sympathetic  attitude,  and  so  what 
He  said  to  them  was  foolishness  and  blas- 
phemy. If  we  have  not  the  spirit  to  hear, 
no  wisdom  or  insight  can  help  us.  If  we 
have  this  spirit  we  need  only  follow  tho 
advice  of  Jeremiah,  "Thus  shall  ye  say, 
every  one  to  his  neighbor  and  every  one 
to  his  brother:  What  hath  the  Lord  an- 
swered and  what  hath  the  Lord  said?" 
For  if  we  are  earnest  enough  to  know  the 
56 


SYMBOLS  OF  SPIEITUAL  TRUTH. 

mind  and  will  of  God  to  be  diligent  in  our 
inquiry  after  Him,  we  shall  be  given  the 
key  to  His  language  and  speech  and  we 
shall  be  able  to  read  and  listen  and  under- 
stand. We  shall  know  the  truth  and  the 
truth  shall  make  us  free.    . 


57 


IV. 

THE  TEMPOKAL  AND  THE  ETEKNAL. 

As  Jesus  is  talking  with  a  number  of  peo- 
ple in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  some  one 
attracted  by  its  beauty  called  attention  to 
the  goodly  stones  and  ornaments  with 
which  the  temple  was  adorned.  This  re- 
mark doubtless  was  foreign  to  the  con- 
versation in  which  Jesus  was  engaged. 
But  He  takes  up  the  change  of  subject  as 
another  opportunity  to  point  a  truth  and 
says,  "As  for  these  things  which  ye  be- 
hold, there  shall  not  be  left  one  stone  upon 
another  which  shall  not  be  thrown  down." 
He  is  not  oblivious  to  the  beauty  of  the 
imposing  structure  before  Him;  nor  is  He 
unmindful  of  the  impression  it  made  upon 
the  beholder,  however  often  He  may  have 
seen  the  temple.  He  is  concerned  more 
with  the  purpose  for  which  the  temple  was 
58 


THE  TEMPORAL  AND  ETERNAL. 

built  and  turns  the  thought  of  His  hearers 
to  the  eternal.  That  which  they  saw  was 
not  permanent.  It  could  not  last.  Only 
that  for  which  the  stones  and  precious 
ornaments  were  gathered — the  underlying 
spirit  of  the  temple,  had  any  abiding  value. 
There  was,  therefore,  a  temporal  and  an 
eternal  element  which  Jesus  saw  before 
Him.  He  saw  these  not  only  in  the  temple 
structure,  but  in  everything  else.  The 
temporal  and  the  eternal  in  life :  these  He 
was  ever  busy  pointing  out. 

We  are  in  danger  of  emphasizing  one  or 
the  other  of  these  elements  as  though  the 
other  did  not  exist.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
admonition  to  look  not  at  the  things  which 
are  seen,  but  at  the  things  which  are  not 
seen,  has  been  interpreted  to  mean  that 
we  must  be  entirely  oblivious  to  our  sur- 
roundings, not  to  look  at  the  things  God 
has  everywhere  placed  before  us.  We  have 
seen  the  hermit  going  off  to  his  cave  in 
order  not  to  see  the  things  which  are  seen 
59 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

and  to  see  the  things  which  are  not  seen. 
He  has  had  his  vision  by  the  side  of  some 
clear  running  brook,  he  has  seen  his  Lord 
transfigured  before  him,  but  he  has  not 
heard  Him  calling  him  out  into  a  world  of 
service.  His  seclusion  has  resulted  in  the 
form  of  selfishness  which  Jesus  so  often 
inveighed  against.  Or  we  have  seen  the 
ascetic  looking  not  only  upon  the  material 
world  as  a  hindrance  to  the  spiritual,  but 
also  upon  his  body  as  having  inherent 
therein  the  germs  of  sin  which  are  ever 
gnawing  at  his  spiritual  vitality.  So  he 
sought  to  lacerate  his  body  in  order  to  give 
his  spirit  free  play.  His  view  would  lead 
logically  to  the  annihilation  of  all  matter, 
and  hence  to  the  destruction  of  one's  self 
and  one's  neighbors.  Or  we  have  heard 
the  stoic  telling  us  that  while  matter  is 
real  and  something  we  can  not  escape,  yet 
we  must  be  entirely  indifferent  to  it,  look 
upon  heat  and  cold,  joy  and  sorrow,  as  they 
come,  make  the  best  of  them,  only  being 
60 


THE  TEMPOEAL  AND  ETERNAL. 

sure  that  in  the  end  they  will  control  us 
and  not  we  them.  Stoicism  would  lead  us 
into  the  toils  of  fatalism ;  whatever  is  must 
be,  we  are  in  the  grip  of  an  ever  blindly 
working  mechanism  which  sooner  or  later 
will  draw  us  into  its  coils.  The  fallacy  of 
the  hermit  and  the  ascetic  and  the  stoic  is 
that  they  fail  to  see  the  real  significance 
of  the  temporal,  and  hence  do  not  let  it 
enter  into  its  rightful  place  in  controlling 
their  lives. 

The  other  extreme,  to  look  only  at  the 
temporal — that  which  necessarily  must 
pass  away  and  be  no  more — is  well  illus- 
trated by  the  attitude  of  many  of  the  Jews 
in  regard  to  their  temple.  To  them  it  was 
a  beautiful  building  adorned  with  much 
gold  and  silver,  a  constant  delight  to  the 
eyes,  but  no  more.  Its  real  purpose,  a 
place  of  training  for  reverent  and  sincere 
devotion,  had  faded  from  their  minds. 
This  purpose  alone  was  eternal  and  would 
escape  all  the  ravage  of  time. 
61 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

Both  the  temporal  and  the  eternal  exist 
for  us.  It  is  our  concern  to  relate  our- 
selves to  them.  Only  once  can  we  cross  a 
stream,  said  the  Greek  philosopher,  be- 
cause when  we  would  cross  it  the  second 
time  the  water  we  crossed  over  is  already 
far  on  its  way  to  the  sea.  This  is  true. 
The  water  is  the  mere  temporalness  of  the 
stream.  It  flows  on  and  on  and  we  never 
can  catch  up  with  it.  So  are  we  necessarily 
related  to  the  material  world.  It  exists  for 
us  only  in  time,  and  the  time  for  each  one 
of  us  is  short.  The  pessimist,  realizing 
this  fact,  said,  "Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is 
vanity.' \  To  him  to  live  was  a  weariness 
of  the  flesh,  there  was  but  little  outlook  for 
man.  Time,  and  chance  happened  to  them 
all.  The  optimist,  with  the  same  realizing 
sense,  however,  said,  "As  for  these  things 
which  ye  see  there  shall  not  remain  one 
stone  upon  the  other  which  shall  not  be 
thrown  down."  To  him  to  live,  however, 
was  a  sublime  privilege;  it  offered  every 
62 


THE  TEMPOEAL  AND  ETERNAL. 

inducement  to  hope  and  peace  and  joy, 
it  permitted  man  to  be  in  harmony  with 
his  Maker  and  to  develop  into  His  like- 
ness. 

This  view  of  life  was  due  to  the  signifi- 
cance which  Jesus  attached  to  the  tem- 
poral. It  is  only  a  means  to  the  external. 
When  He  spoke. of  the  temple  falling  down 
He  did  not  see  a  ruin,  a  mere  mass  of  stone 
and  debris.  He  saw  another  temple  whose 
foundation  was  as  deep  as  the  earth's 
center,  whose  pillars  were  as  high  as  the 
giant  trees  and  lofty  mountain  peak,  whose 
arch  was  the  vault  of  the  heavens,  and 
whose  music  and  ceremonial  were  the 
voices  of  untold  millions  of  men  and  women 
and  children  praising  God  and  worshiping 
Him.  This  eternal  temple  He  saw  in  the 
temporal  pile  of  stone  and  ornaments  be- 
fore Him.  He  did  not  ask  His  followers 
to  look  away  from  that  which  they  could 
see.  He  asked  them  to  look  at  it,  and  so 
searchingly,  so  scrutinizingly,  that  they 
63 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

would  see  the  soul,  the  spirit  therein,  that 
which  alone  was  eternal,  so  that  when  the 
temporal  would  pass  they  would  possess 
the  eternal.  The  temporal  is,  therefore, 
only  a  means  to  lead  us  out  into  the 
eternal.  It  never  can  be  an  end  in  it- 
self. As  we  travel  to  some  distant  place 
on  some  errand  we  go  by  a  certain  means 
of  conveyance.  For  the  time  being  we  are 
closely  related  to  the  means.  We  may  need 
to  continue  this  relation  for  several  days, 
it  may  become  so  familiar  to  us  as  to  seem 
an  entirely  natural  element  of  our  life ;  for 
the  time  being  it  will  seem  to  be  identical 
with  our  life.  But  the  moment  comes  and 
we  must  leave  our  car  or  ship.  Now  we 
cease  to  lay  much  stress  upon  it,  for  it  was 
only  an  incident  in  our  journey.  It  car- 
ried tis  across  the  continent  or  across  the 
ocean,  but  it  had  only  a  temporary  relation 
to  our  real  purpose.  That  purpose  repre- 
sented the  eternal  and  remained  after  the 
other  had  passed.  We  read  a  book  and  for 
64 


THE  TEMPOEAL  AND  ETERNAL. 

a  period  we  are  wholly  absorbed  in  that 
book.  The  eye  of  the  author  looks  deep 
into  our  soul,  it  sees  our  perplexities,  our 
hopes,  our  aspirations,  and  it  points  these 
things  out  to  us.  Our  being  pulsates  with 
a  new  life  because  we  see  it  now  as  in  a 
mirror.  The  book,  however,  is  only  the 
means  to  this  end — it  is  temporal  merely, 
and  must  pass.  To-morrow,  next  week,  we 
will  remember  only  a  few  sentences  or  a 
striking  thought.  But  it  was  a  medium  to 
the  eternal,  its  life  has  entered  our  life, 
we  can  not  identify  it,  point  out  the  stones 
thereof  and  the  goodly  ornaments,  for 
these  are  no  more.  But  its  quickening  in- 
fluence remains,  its  spirit  lives,  these  are 
now  a  part  of  our  mental  and  spiritual 
endowment. 

So  of  all  education.  We  are  building  a 
structure,  stone  upon  stone.  We  are  ac- 
quiring a  knowledge  of  this  subject,  we  are 
reading  widely  in  that  field,  investigating 
accurately  those  phenomena.  But  all  these 
5  65 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

things  are  temporal.  The  old  must  dis- 
appear, the  new  come  to  light.  The  eternal 
in  our  education  is  the  development  of  our 
mind  and  our  will  so  that  we  shall  be  able 
to  rear  a  new  structure  of  which  we  must 
be  the  architect  and  the  builder,  and  in  the 
last  stage  the  sole  tenant.  If  we  have  not 
grasped  this  eternal  in  our  life's  prepara- 
tion we  have  missed  our  aim  and  are  mis- 
spending our  time. 

So  in  religion.  There  are  certain  ritual- 
istic forms  and  ceremonial  rites  and  theo- 
logical conceptions  that  objectify  religion 
for  us  and  help  us  to  an  intelligent  and 
reverent  devotion.  But  these  are  the  mere 
temporalness  of  religion.  They  are  only 
means  to  help  us  realize  the  eternal  in  our 
inner  life  and  to  purify  our  thoughts  and 
actions.  Yet  there  are  many  who  lay  so 
much  stress  on  accustomed  forms  of  wor- 
ship and  the  familiar  phraseology  in  re- 
ligious speech  that  when  these  are  changed 
or  taken  away  their  religion  is  gone.  So 
66 


THE  TEMPOEAL  AND  ETEENAL. 

in  the  habits  of  dresS  and  adornment  and 
the  formalities  of  social  convention  and 
usage,  and  the  necessity  of  supplying  our 
physical  wants  and  comforts.  These  are 
only  the  means  to  help  us  appear  respect- 
able and  conduct  ourselves  properly  and 
meet  the  demands  of  daily  life.  When  we 
live  for  dress  and  social  form  and  money 
getting  and  act  as  though  we  had  found 
the  end  and  not  only  the  means  of  life,  we 
have  hitched  our  chariots  to  a  comet,  and 
with  the  comet  must  disappear. 

"We  realize  only  too  well  how  uncertain 
life  is,  how  we  are  ever  in  the  continual 
flow  of  the  temporal,  that  all  things  must 
pass  from  our  grasp.  The  cry  of  man- 
kind, therefore,  is  for  the  eternal,  some- 
thing which  he  can  place  under  his  feet 
and  stand  on  firmly.  For  this  the  whole 
creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain. 
The  search  for  this  has  sent  many  a  storm- 
tossed  soul  into  the  cloister.  For  in  the 
intense  moments  of  calm  that  come  over 
67 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

us  all  we  can  not  help  but  hear  the  noise 
and  plaintive  cry  in  the  deeps  of  our  souls 
as  of  a  bird  beating  against  its  cage  and 
begging  for  release  out  into  its  native  free- 
dom.   The  man  who  can  lead  us  to  a  be- 
lief in  the  abiding  touches  the  feeling  of 
eternity  in  us.     He  ever  commands  our 
attention,  and  if  he  can  but  make  us  see 
the  wider,  permanent  world  in  which  we 
may  have  a  part,  he  will  save  us  from  this 
world  and  transform  our  lives  from  being 
the  merely  incidental  in  a  fleeting  world 
to  the  living  realities  of  an  eternal  world. 
This  Jesus  does  for  us.    He  insists  upon 
the  reality  of  the  material  world  and  shows 
us  how  we  must  be  a  part  thereof,  living 
in  it  and  ever  meeting  all  its  diversity  of 
condition  and  demand.    But  He  tells  us  to 
seek  in  the  outward  forms  and  conditions 
of  life  the  inner  meaning  and  essence,  to 
look  behind  the  material  and  the  temporal 
for  the  spiritual  and  eternal.    He  brings 
us  a  message  of  the  eternal.    Everywhere 
68 


THE  TEMPOEAL  AND  ETERNAL. 

and  always  He  revealed  and  represented 
the  eternal.  He  leads  us  confidently  to 
believe  that  in  this  passing  show  of  life 
there  is  an  abiding  element,  that  as  we  can 
reach  down  and  dip  from  the  flowing 
stream  a  cup  of  cold  water  which  shall 
quench  our  thirst  and  strengthen  our 
souls,  so  can  we  draw  deep  from  the  foun- 
tain springs  of  life  which  are  ever  send- 
ing their  streams  onward  and  take  our 
portion  thereof  which  shall  be  to  us  power 
and  sustenance.  He  shows  us  the  reality 
of  that  larger  world  for  which  we  were 
born.  In  this  world  Jesus  lived,  and  He 
declared  it  possible  for  us  to  enter  into  it 
with  Him.  He  would  immediately  usher 
us  therein.  This  world  in  which  we  are 
so  prone  to  remain  is  a  world  for  children 
with  limited  perspective,  that  one  is  the 
world  for  men  with  lofty  aims,  seeking  an 
ever-widening  horizon.  There  men  come 
into  their  true  manhood,  for  they  put  away 
their  childish  things  and  cease  to  speak 
69      * 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

and  understand  and  think  as  children. 
There  they  come  into  their  manly  estate, 
they  are  their  own  administrators  and 
guardians.  They  may  plan  larger  and 
more  worthy  pursuits  arid  embark  upon 
those  vast  and  splendid  careers  which  that 
larger  universe  offers.  Base  indeed  and 
circumscribed  and  comfortless  is  this  pres- 
ent life  when  it  becomes  a  mere  pursuit 
of  sensuous  pleasure  and  vast  wealth  and 
worldly  honors,  mere  incidentals  of  life, 

Like  the  rainbow's  lovely  form 
Evanishing  amid  the  storm. 

It  is  worthy  and  to  be  desired,  however, 
when  we  see  that  it  is  but  the  outer  court 
through  which  we  must  pass  into  the  real 
temple  of  life,  where  we  can  see  the  flood 
of  light  streaming  through  its  windows, 
whose  beautiful  and  suggestive  designs  had 
no  meaning  for  us  from  without;  where 
we  can  hear  the  music  of  its  choir  and  un- 
derstand its  notes,  whose  loud  and  intense 
70 


THE  TEMPOEAL  AND  ETEENAL. 

chords  were  only  confusion  to  ns  from 
without  and  whose  subdued  and  comfort- 
ing tones  were  unheard ;  where  we  can  take 
our  places  with  men  and  women  of  like' 
mind  with  us  and  join  in  the  inspiriting 
service  of  devotion  to  and  worship  of  him 
whose  we  are  and  whom  we  must  serve. 
Citizens  of  two  worlds:  these  we  are — 
a  temporal  and  an  eternal — the  higher  ever 
drawing  out  our  best  and  leading  us  to  the 
better.  As  the  Almighty  has  shown  us  in 
nature  that  our  earth  is  explicable  only 
in  relation  to  a  larger  cosmos  on  which  it 
must  depend,  so  in  Jesus  Christ  He  has 
shown  us  that  our  world  can  only  be  un- 
derstood in  relation  to  that  larger  world 
over  which  the  Spirit  of  Christ  rules  and 
to  which  we  must  turn  our  sincerest 
thought  and  most  ardent  endeavor.  Thus 
we  have  the  eternal  in  the  temporal.  Not 
one  stone  will  remain  upon  another,  but 
we  will  have  entered  that  larger  estate 
wherein  we  can  dispense  with  such  smaller 
71 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

needs.  Faith,  hope,  and  love  will  remain, 
and  the  desire  for  righteousness,  and  the 
pursuit  of  knowledge,  and  the  inspiration 
of  the  beautiful  and  the  good.  For  these 
are  the  expressions  of  the  eternal  thought 
and  will  from  which  the  world  came  forth 
and  by  which  it  forever  goes  onward.  In 
relation  to  this  Eternal  Being  only  are  per- 
manence and  stability  to  be  considered. 
Take  Him  out  of  the  world  and  it  will  be- 
come a  blind  mass.  Take  Him  out  of  our 
lives  and  they  will  be  as  fruitless  as  a 
tree  from  which  the  sap  has  ceased  to  flow, 
as  dark  as  a  wire  cut  off  from  its  current, 
as  lifeless  as  a  coal  from  which  the  carbon 
has  been  burnt.  If  we  keep  God  in  our 
lives  we  lay  hold  on  the  eternal  within 
us  and  enter  that  larger  life  where  all 
the  powers  of  mind  and  soul  have  free  play 
and  worthy  stimulus.  "For  this  is  life 
eternal  that  they  might  know  Thee  the  only 
true  God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  Thou 
hast  sent." 

72 


y. 

APPEOACHES  TO  GOD. 

Theke  are  two  ways  of  finding  God.  These 
ways  are  so  comprehensive  in  their  scope 
as  to  exclude  all  others.  The  one  way  is 
through  nature,  or  to  use  a  term  which  the 
advocates  of  this  way  delight  to  use, 
through  cosmic  forces.  This  term  is  suf- 
ficiently vague  for  all  except  those  who 
feel  themselves  especially  initiated  into  its 
mysteries.  And  the  vagueness  of  the 
words  sticks  also  to  the  way.  For  it  must 
be  explained  what  cosmic  forces  are  and 
how  they  can  lead  to  God.  A  child  would 
not  know  what  the  term  meant,  and  an 
older  person  must  walk  in  an  intellectual 
valley  of  the  shadow  until  he  puts  himself 
to  the  task  of  dispelling  the  gloom.  Even 
then  the  end  is  more  apt  to  be  darkness 
than  light. 

73 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

The  other  way  of  finding  God  is  through 
man.  When  we  speak  of  man  we  have 
a  connotation  which  even  the  child  appre- 
ciates. It  does  not  have  to  be  told  what 
man  is,  for  there  is  its  father  and  there 
are  its  uncles,  perhaps,  and  a  host  of  other 
men  whom  it  knows.  The  child  under- 
stands at  once  when  we  speak  about  a  man. 
The  very  term  suggests  certain  ideas  to 
its  infantile  intellect.  It  suggests  power: 
a  child's  father  can  do  anything.  It  sug- 
gests wisdom:  a  child's  father  knows 
everything.  It  suggests  goodness:  a 
child's  father  is  the  embodiment  of  virtue. 
We  question  the  child  mind  on  these  points 
and  find  it  has  the  very  highest  type  of 
manhood  in  consideration.  The  drunkard 
is  loathsome,  the  tramp  is  to  be  feared, 
the  thief  and  robber  to  be  shunned  as 
darkness.  Such  perverts  rightly  have  no 
place  in  the  child's  definition  of  man;  they 
are  not  included  in  its  human  category. 

These  child  ideas  have  to  be  modified. 
74 


APPROACHES  TO  GOD. 

They  do  not  lead  at  once  to  the  solution  of 
the  question :  who,  where,  and  what  is  God? 
There  is  something  about  the  idea  of  man, 
however,  which  is  clear  and  tangible  even 
to  a  child.  The  more  we  study  man  in 
his  best  estate  and  truest  worth  the  more 
are  we  led  up  to  a  Supreme  Being  who 
is  the  Author  of  man's  being,  a  Being  in 
whom  wisdom  and  power  and  goodness 
originate  and  find  expression. 

Here  are  two  ways  of  trying  to  find  God : 
the  one  through  physical  nature,  the  other 
through  human  life.  The  question  put 
nineteen  centuries  ago  on  a  Sabbath  day 
in  a  Galilean  cornfield  is  still  a  pertinent 
one  and  goes  to  the  root  of  the  question, 
i  *  How  much  better  is  a  man  than  a  sheep  ? } ' 
The  question  was  up  as  to  the  relative 
value  of  saving  the  life  or  relieving  the 
distress  of  a  dumb  beast  or  ministering  in 
like  manner  to  a  human  soul.  The  ques- 
tion was  its  own  answer,  "How  much 
better  is  a  man  than  a  sheep?"  Leaving 
75 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

the  comparison  of  man  with  beast  thus  an- 
swered, let  us  go  beyond  or  below  the  range 
of  brute  creation  to  that  of  physical  na- 
ture, and  put  this  question:  How  much 
better  is  a  man  than  a  tree  or  a  flower  or 
a  mountain  or  the  sea?  Our  souls  are 
charmed  with  the  beauties,  the  grandeur, 
the  breath-taking  wonders,  and  illimitable 
possibilities  of  inanimate  creation.  Yet 
what  are  these  when  man  is  put  in  the 
balance  and  truly  studied?  The  mind,  the 
will,  the  energy,  the  possibilities  of  man — 
these  are  the  noble,  thought-arresting,  con- 
viction-compelling characteristics  we  dis- 
cover when  we  look  at  man  for  whom  the 
world  was  made  and  who  is  the  real  and 
vital  and  energizing*  center  of  the  physical 
universe. 

Tennyson  looked  at  a  flower  in  a  cran- 
nied wall  and  after  mature  reflection  reg- 
istered the  imperative  condition  precedent 
to  all  knowledge.  If  he  could  only  know 
all  about  that  flower  there  in  its  crannies 
76 


APPEOACHES  TO  GOD. 

he  would  know  what  God  and  man  is.  He 
could  not  know.  Nature  to  that  extent  is 
a  sealed  book.  Yet  he  could  turn  from  the 
flower  and  look  into  the  cradle  of  the  last 
born  babe  and  in  one  glance  see  more 
of  God  than  all  the  rocks  and  rills  and 
fields  and  flowers  could  tell  him. 

When  we  look  at  these  two  ways  of  try- 
ing to  find  God  we  see  that  one  is  on  a 
lower,  the  other  on  a  higher  level.  The 
one  deals  with  the  strata  of  the  hills  and 
the  rocks  in  the  earth,  with  protoplasm 
and  nerve-cells,  and  things  that  live  in  the 
water  and  creep  upon  the  ground  and  hide 
themselves  in  jungles ;  the  other  deals  with 
mind  and  heart  and  will,  with  intellect, 
with  love,  with  service,  with  self-sacrifice. 

Following  this  lower  way,  turning  now 
and  then  into  its  by-paths,  forming  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  life  that  throngs  this 
pathway — the  swimming  and  the  creeping 
and  the  swinging  expressions  of  life — some 
very  good  men  have  found  God.  But  it 
77 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

is  not  the  highway  to  God,  but  a  by-way. 
It  is  a  devious  way  and  also  a  dangerous 
when  followed  only.  There  are  the  thick 
undergrowth  of  the  jungle  which  causes 
much  stumbling,  and  the  mosses  and  other 
parasites  hanging  from  the  trees  which 
drop  their  poisonous  germs;  miasma  and 
malaria  are  abroad.  It  takes  a  good  con- 
stitution, a  stout  heart,  a  cool  head,  and 
a  steady  nerve  to  tread  this  path.  Even 
then  many  good  men  who  go  in  thereat 
come  to  confusion  and  are  overwhelmed 
by  doubt.  It  is  the  materialistic  agnostic's 
way  of  finding  God.  He  says:  believe  as 
little  as  possible,  take  nothing  for  granted, 
accept  only  what  the  eye  can  see  or  a  rigor- 
ous logic  can  prove.  Then  he  undertakes 
to  give  us  his  belief,  which  to  believe  makes 
a  greater  draft  on  the  intellect  than  the 
belief  of  a  childlike  faith.  As  "living  mat- 
ter, plants,  animals  and  man,  came  about" 
through  the  "unconscious"  working  of 
"laws  inherent"  in  "world-evolving 
78 


APPROACHES  TO  GOD. 

stuff," — "So  science  commonly  supposes,' f 
so  the  soul — if  there  be  a  soul — and  the  in- 
tellect evolved  from  the  ooze  of  a  slime 
pit.  "Morality  is  refined  #  selfishness. 
Men  are  good  because  it  pays  them 
to  be.  Morality's  roots  are  in  the 
blackest  subsoil  of  human  character. 
From  selfishness  that  has  no  wish  except 
to  gratify  brutish  appetite  and  passion 
has  been  evolved  all  that  we  know  and 
admire  in  justice,  mercy,  altruism,  and  the 
personal  virtues."  It  is  a  breath  of  fresh 
air  we  breathe  in  the  saying  of  Him  whose 
hand  was  on  the  very  pulse  of  humanity 
and  whose  diagnosis  of  humanity's  disease 
still  stands  the  test  of  expert  investiga- 
tion. "Do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns 
or  figs  of  thistles !"  "A  good  tree  can  not 
bring  forth  evil  fruit,  neither  can  a  cor- 
rupt tree  bring  forth  good  fruit. ' 9  Neither 
are  justice  and  mercy  and  altruism  and 
the  personal  virtues  evolved  from  the 
blackest  subsoil  of  human  character  and 
79 


tTHE  ASSUBANCE  OF  FAITH. 

with  no  wish  except  to  gratify  brutish  ap- 
petite and  passion.  Every  approach  to 
God  must  fail  if  it  can  not  account  for 
goodness  and  mercy  and  altruism.  Hence 
cosmic  forces  fail  as  an  approach  to  God. 
Turn  from  this  approach  to  God  on  the 
lower  levels  and  mount  up  to  the  higher 
altitude  where  the  goal  of  creation,  man, 
lives  and  moves  and  has  his  being.  The 
line  of  the  poet  which  says  every  pros- 
pect of  nature  pleases  and  only  man  is  vile 
is  true  only  of  some  men.  Man  by  nature 
is  not  vile.  He  is  the  noblest  creation  of 
God,  made  a  little  lower  than  the  angels. 
There  is  the  animal  in  him,  and  if  he  gives 
this  full  play  he  can  descend  even  to  the 
level  of  the  brute.  But  there  is  also  the 
divine  in  him,  and  with  this  under  devel- 
opment he  can  mount  ever  higher  and  with 
the  ease  of  a  bird  spreading  its  wings  to 
fly.  The  newspapers  report  that  an  over- 
land train  on  the  Santa  Fe  railroad,  while 
running  fifty  miles  an  hour  across  the  dry 
80 


APPEOACHES  TO  GOD. 

and  burning  Mohave  Desert,  was  stopped 
by  a  man  who  was  tending  a  few  head  of 
cattle.  The  train  men  hurried  to  supply 
him  with  water,  because  there  is  a  law  in 
Nevada  that  requires  every  train  to  stop 
instantly  when  flagged  anywhere  in  the 
desert  by  any  one  needing  water.  Train 
schedules  fly  into  atoms  before  this  human 
provision.  Ask  a  man  dying  from  thirst 
on  the  desert  to  look  at  the  surrounding 
nature  and  find  God,  and  his  reply  will  be 
a  bitter  curse  or  a  helpless  wail.  Tell  him 
to  hold  up  his  hand,  even  though  it  be 
feeble,  before  an  onrushing  one-hundred- 
thousand-weight  of  steel  and  let  him  see 
men  like  him  hasten  with  life-giving  water 
and  he  will  see  God,  although  he  may  not 
recognize  Him. 

During  the  awful  conflagration  that  fol- 
lowed the  earthquake  in  San  Francisco 
men  and  women  and  children  were  seen 
going  along  the  desolated  streets  to  places 
of  refuge  holding  each  other  by  the  hand. 
6  81 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

Even  strong  men  were  not  ashamed  to  go 
through  the  streets  holding  each  other's 
hands.  Ah,  the  touch  of  a  human  hand! 
That  was  all  that  many  of  the  sufferers 
had  left.  The  very  earth  trembling  be- 
neath their  feet,  home  destroyed,  business 
ruined,  the  fruit  of  a  lifetime  gone  in  a 
moment.  What  mockery  it  would  have 
been  to  have  said  to  those  stricken  people : 
Look  at  the  manifestation  of  Nature,  and 
in  the  earthquake  and  the  fire  see  your 
God!  Yet  they  felt  Him  in  every  warm 
handclasp,  and  knew  that  hope  was  not 
shaken  and  love  was  not  burned. 

Sickness  or  death  enters  the  home.  The 
shadows  are  lengthening.  There  is  that 
awful  stillness  when  every  sound  seems 
hushed  except  the  one  voice  that  tells  of 
approaching  distress  or  loneliness.  One 
might  think  of  taking  a  walk  abroad  under 
such  circumstances  and  finding  comfort  in 
the  meadows  and  hills,  or  of  turning  to  a 
favorite  horse  or  dog  and  finding  a  real 
82 


APPEOACHES  TO  GOD. 

note  of  sympathy.  But  only  when  a  friend 
or  loved  one  comes  and  clasps  our  hand 
and  speaks  with  the  silent  look  of  the  eyes 
come  the  sustenance  and  hope  that  enable 
us  to  hear  that  other  voice  saying,  "Be 
still  and  know  that  I  am  God."  With 
strong  resignation  we  can  then  cry, 
1 i  Though  He  slay  me  yet  will  I  trust  Him.  * ' 
Through  man  is  man  led  to  God  and  saved. 
Companionship  is  man's  salvation.  Soli- 
tary confinement  is  far  more  dreaded  than 
the  rack  or  the  gallows  or  death  itself. 

When  Browning  brings  David  before 
Saul  to  dispel  the  king's  melancholy,  he 
lets  the  musician  play  first  the  gladsome 
songs  of  nature ;  the  tunes  which  all  the 
sheep  and  birds  know.  But  Saul  does  not 
stir.  He  then  plays  the  rollicking  notes 
of  the  harvest  songs  when  the  reapers  are 
full  of  joy.  But  Saul  does  not  stir.  He 
plays  then  the  marriage  song  and  the  war 
strains,  but  Saul  only  groans.  Then  the 
sweet  singer  touches  the  notes  of  man- 
83 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

hood's  prime  vigor  and  leads  Saul  to  see 
that  his  Savior  must  be  man,  a  man  who 
could  do  most  and  bear  most  for  mankind. 

"0  Saul,  it  shall  be 
A  Pace  like  my  face  that  receives  thee ; 

a  Man  like  to  me, 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by  forever ; 

a  Hand  like  this  hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life 

to  thee !     See  the  Christ  stand ! " 

To  find  God  through  man  is  man's  sal- 
vation. And  Jesus  the  God-man,  the  link 
between  God  and  man,  leads  us  to  the  very 
throne  of  the  Almighty  and  we  feel  com- 
forted and  satisfied  when  He  interprets 
God  for  us.  As  the  agnostic  must  make 
his  comparisons,  if  they  are  to  be  valid, 
from  the  highest  type  evolved,  so  do  we 
look  at  the  best,  the  noblest,  the  truest 
we  know  in  mankind,  and  make  our  judg- 
ment accordingly.  We  are  not  ashamed 
to  turn  with  Peter  to  Jesus  and  say,  "Lord, 
to  whom  else  can  we  go  but  to  Thee?" 
84 


APPROACHES  TO  GOD. 

In  the  criticism  that  has  centered  about 
Jesus,  there  are  two  points  that  disputants 
agree  upon.  These  two  points  are  seen 
from  every  vantage  just  as  the  twin  peaks 
of  the  Jungfrau  ever  lift  up  their  snowy 
heads.  These  two  points  are,  first,  that 
Jesus  is  the  most  perfect  type  of  manhood 
history  knows,  and  second,  that  none  has 
revealed  God  to  man  more  clearly  than 
He.  In  spite  of  the  caustic  attacks  made 
upon  Jesus  by  French  or  German  or  Eng- 
lish critic,  these  two  points  rise  clear  above 
the  smoke  even  as  the  mountain-top  stands 
in  the  clear  heaven  above  the  fog.  What 
Peter  said  on  that  day  long  ago  history 
has  been  repeating  ever  since  and  with  in- 
creasing emphasis:  "Lord,  to  whom  shall 
we  go?  Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal 
life."  His  words  were  the  expression  of 
His  own  true  life.  As  we  look  upon  Jesus 
as  the  man,  the  lover,  the  sympathizer, 
the  sacrificer,  we  feel  wonderfully  akin  to 
Him  because  He  shows  us  in  the  clearest 
85 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

light  the  very  characteristics  in  man  which 
most  appeal  to  us  and  upon  which  we  are 
most  dependent.  Man  needs  the  love,  the 
sympathy,  the  confidence  of  man.  If  he 
had  not  these  to  turn  to,  this  world  would 
be  unkind  and  cruel  and  God  a  very  dis- 
tant and  indifferent  stepfather. 

"Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go?  Thou  hast 
the  words  of  eternal  life," — the  sentence 
does  not  end  here;  it  goes  on — "and  we 
believe  and  know  that  Thou  art  the  Christ 
the  Son  of  the  living  God."  These  last 
words  are  a  stumbling-block  for  many. 
"Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  liv- 
ing God. ' '  As  we  seek  to  understand  these 
words  we  forget  all  about  Jesus  down  in 
the  very  midst  of  humanity  ever  lifting 
men  and  women  up  to  God,  and  lose  our- 
selves in  metaphysical  questionings  as  to 
how  Jesus  came  into  the  world.  "We  mag- 
nify the  incidental  to  the  importance  of  the 
vital.  We  do  not  ordinarily  ask  first  where 
a  man  came  from,  but  what  he  has  done. 
86 


APPEOACHES  TO  GOD. 

There  is  a  natural  tendency  to  immortal- 
ize the  youth  of  every  great  man.  Had  he 
not  been  great,  however,  we  should  never 
have  heard  anything  about  his  youth.  His 
acts  are  the  important  thing.  We  are  not 
called  upon  to  believe  Jesus  was  divine  pri- 
marily because  of  certain  miracles  which 
He  is  said  to  have  performed.  We  can 
believe  that  He  was  divine,  yes,  and  have 
firm  faith  in  the  miracles  also — although 
Jesus  never  laid  any  emphasis  on  miracles 
— because  of  what  Jesus  could  accomplish 
in  His  day,  and  has  accomplished  ever 
since,  and  accomplishes  to-day.  We  be- 
lieve in  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels  because 
of  the  Christ  of  history.  We  believe  He 
could  have  performed  miracles  in  His  day 
because  He  has  been  performing  miracles 
ever  since,  making  the  waste  places  glad, 
dispelling  darkness,  enthroning  love. 

Peter  called  Jesus  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  the  living  God.    In  the  Eevised  Version 
we  will  find  him  quoted  as  having  said 
87 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

merely,  ' '  Thou  art  the  Holy  One  of  God. ' ' 
"While  there  may  thus  seem  a  discrepancy 
as  to  the  words  Peter  used,  there  is  abso- 
lutely none  as  to  the  thought  Peter  ex- 
pressed. He  looked  upon  Jesus  as  his 
Savior,  and  it  is  immaterial  whether  he 
called  Him  the  Holy  One  of  God  or  the  Son 
of  the  living  God  or  any  other  term  that 
would  justify  his  meaning.  Jesus  was 
Peter's  Savior  because  he  had  submitted 
himself  to  Him.  This  is  the  point.  He  is 
the  Savior  of  all  who  submit  themselves 
to  Him.  The  dynamic  of  every  religion 
is  submission  to  a  person  and  not  to  a 
creed.  We  submit  ourselves  to  the  care  of 
a  physician  in  whom  we  have  confidence 
and  learn  many  of  the  secrets  of  the  med- 
ical profession.  Abstract  terms  become 
concrete  things.  We  are  able  to  help  the 
physician  much  in  his  ministrations.  As 
we  submit  ourselves  to  Jesus,  we  learn  His 
secrets,  can  foresee  His  purposes,  discover 
His  methods,  help  Him  in  the  salvation  of 


APPKOACHES  TO  GOD. 

our  souls.     He  becomes  our  Savior.    We 
then  believe  because  we  know. 

Our  approach  to  God  is  through  man 
and  not  through  nature.  We  do  not  dis- 
parage nature.  God  is  there.  We  find 
Him  there,  however,  because  we  first  found 
Him  in  ourselves  and  in  our  neighbors. 
The  best  man  who  can  help  us  find  God 
is  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  When  we  submit 
ourselves  to  Him  entirely  as  Peter  did, 
we  exclaim  with  Peter:  "Thou  art  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God." 


89 


VI. 

GOD'S  WAY  NATUKAL. 

It  was  but  a  few  hours'  journey  from 
Mount  Carmel  where  Elijah,  the  prophet, 
so  gloriously  triumphed  over  the  prophets 
of  Baal,  to  the  juniper  tree  where  Elijah, 
the  fugitive,  sat  disconsolate,  mourning  his 
lonely  fate.  "I,  only  I  am  left,  and  my 
life  would  they  take." 

God  was  with  him  on  the  hill;  in  the 
valley  he  is  alone.  On  the  mountain  God 
revealed  Himself  in  fire  and  wind  and 
rain;  in  the  desert  the  prophet  is  unable 
to  discover  any  evidence  that  God  is  about. 
On  the  mountain  God  was  ready  to  defend 
His  own  majesty  and  avenge  the  insult  to 
His  honor.  In  the  valley  He  was  not  con- 
cerned about  His  prophet,  He  stretched 
not  forth  His  hand  to  stay  his  pursuers  or 
90 


GOD'S  WAY  NATUEAL. 

His  strong  arm  to  protect  his  life.  So  in 
the  dolor  of  his  soul  and  the  delusion  of 
his  mind  he  pictured  Jehovah  as  a  God  of 
the  hills,  but  not  of  the  valleys ;  a  God  who 
cared  for  His  own  interests  and  the  on- 
going of  His  world,  but  who  had  no  con- 
cern in  the  affairs  of  men  and  women;  a 
God  of  fire  and  wind  and  thunder,  but  not 
a  God  whose  manifestation  was  as  quiet 
and  gentle  as  a  sprouting  blade  of  grass. 
So  Elijah  mused  and  became  more  dis- 
couraged and  lonely. 

There  were  some  lessons  about  God 
which  he  needed  to  learn  under  that 
juniper  tree.  The  word  of  the  Lord  came 
to  him,  we  are  told,  and  he  was  commanded 
to  go  forth  and  stand  upon  the  mount 
before  the  Lord.  And  behold  the  Lord 
passed  by,  and  a  great  and  strong  wind 
rent  the  mountains  and  brake  in  pieces  the 
rocks  before  the  Lord;  but  the  Lord  was 
not  in  the  wind.  And  after  the  wind  an 
earthquake,  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the 
91 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

earthquake;  and  after  the  earthquake  a 
fire,  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  fire,  and 
after  the  fire  a  still  small  voice.  And 
Elijah  wrapped  his  face  in  his  mantle,  for 
the  Lord  had  revealed  Himself.  In  a  still 
small  voice,  gentle,  but  pronounced,  the 
natural  way  in  which  a  father  would  speak 
to  his  child  and  teach  him  his  lesson,  God 
spoke  to  Elijah,  and  his  eyes  were  made 
to  see  and  his  soul  to  rejoice.  He  had  been 
thinking  otherwise  about  God,  that  God 
must  reveal  Himself  in  what  we  choose  to 
call  a  supernatural  way.  Anything  won- 
derful or  spectacular  would  be  of  God; 
that  which  was  perfectly  natural  and  which 
could  be  understood  as  natural  was  not 
of  God. 

So  a  great  many  other  people  have 
thought.  They  have  looked  for  Him  only 
in  signs  and  wonders.  A  drought  or  a 
hurricane,  an  eruption  or  an  earthquake, 
a  comet  or  a  waterspout,  was  significantly 
portentous  and  indicated  God's  presence. 
92 


GOD'S  WAY  NATUEAL. 

Calamity  at  hand  or  calamity  to  come  was 
a  visitation  of  the  Almighty  and  man  must 
cower  before  Him.  It  was  not  realized  that 
this  view,  so  long  held  by  the  devout,  out- 
raged all  rational  thought  of  God.  That 
it  placed  Him  outside  of  His  world  like  a 
king  in  his  palace  away  from  his  subjects, 
to  which  he  might  return  on  occasion,  as 
a  king  might  enter  one  of  his  cities,  with 
the  blow  of  trumpet  and  the  splendor  of 
pageantry,  and  with  all  the  indifference  of 
one  who  was  in  supreme  control.  They 
did  not  realize  that  this  view  also  did  vio- 
lence to  God's  intelligence,  as  though  He 
could  not  make  a  world  orderly  in  its  on- 
going; and  further  that  it  was  a  travesty 
of  His  love,  for  it  indicated  that  He  came 
into  the  world  to  punish  His  people. 

This  view  was  satisfactory  only  to 
people  who  did  not  think.  To  others,  espe- 
cially as  the  discoveries  of  science  pro- 
gressed, it  became  more  and  more  unten- 
able. So  another  view  arose  that  went 
93 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

quite  to  the  other  extreme.  Science  began 
to  say:  Nothing  is  supernatural,  all  is 
natural.  No  God  is  necessary  to  explain 
the  beginning  or  ongoing  of  this  world. 
Somehow  or  other  that  which  we  call 
matter,  the  material  substance  which  we 
can  see  and  feel,  got  to  going  by  a  kind 
of  attraction  or  interaction,  that  this  move- 
ment became  more  and  more  regular  and 
fixed  as  law,  and  the  orderly  process  we 
can  trace  in  nature  emerged.  Then  men 
began  to  suggest  that  this  interaction  of 
material  substances  was  not  only  the 
method  by  which  the  world  moved,  but  that 
it  was  also  the  cause  of  the  world's  begin- 
ning, and  that  if  we  could  only  go  back  far 
enough  we  would  be  able  to  see  how  the 
world  began  independent  of  God.  We  do 
not  understand  these  things  they  tell  us 
because  we  are  as  yet  not  wise  enough. 
As  we  grow  wiser  all  will  be  clear.  In 
the  meantime  it  is  well  enough  to  attribute 
to  God  those  things  which  can  not  be  ex- 
94 


GOD'S  WAY  NATUEAL. 

plained  by  matter  and  motion.  But  as 
men  become  more  and  more  enlightened 
God  will  be  less  and  less  necessary  and 
some  day  science  will  conduct  Him  to  the 
frontier  of  the  universe  and  "bow  Him  out 
with  thanks  for  His  provisional  services. ' ' 
Here  we  have  two  views.  The  one  look- 
ing at  God  only  from  the  side  of  the  super- 
natural gave  us  a  God  outside  of  His  world 
with  neither  intelligence  nor  love,  and  the 
other  looking  at  God  from  the  purely 
naturalistic  point  of  view  gave  us  either 
exactly  the  same  kind  of  God  or  no  God 
at  all.  Exaggerated  truth,  in  the  long  run, 
is  just  as  depressing  as  half  truth.  Man's 
mind  sooner  or  later  revolts  against  both. 
So  the  error  and  the  half-truth  of  these 
two  views  were  harmonized.  The  clearest 
thinking  of  to-day  gives  us  a  God  who  is, 
was,  and  will  be  everywhere  in  the  world 
and  whose  way  of  manifesting  Himself  is 
as  natural  as  the  air  we  breathe.    The  sci- 


95 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

entist  has  come  to  see  that  science  can  not 
account  for  the  beginning  of  things,  that 
its  province  is  to  study  the  material  uni- 
verse and  the  orderliness  of  its  ongoing 
and  tabulate  results.  That  back  of  all 
matter  and  all  law  must  be  a  Supreme  In- 
telligence and  a  Supreme  Will,  and  science 
leads  us  to  the  God  in  whom  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  defenders  of  a  God  whose  mani- 
festation is  purely  supernatural  have  come 
to  see  that  they  have  expressed  but  a  half- 
truth,  that  God  is  to  be  found,  not  so  much 
in  the  wind  or  the  earthquake  or  the  fire 
as  in  the  orderly  ongoing  of  the  world ;  and 
that  in  this  orderly  ongoing  the  supreme 
love  of  the  Almighty  is  manifest.  His 
way,  therefore,  is  the  still  small  voice,  the 
gentleness  that  makes  man  great.  For  He 
letteth  the  rain  come  down  and  the  snow 
from  heaven,  which  returneth  not  thither, 
but  watereth  the  earth  and  maketh  it  to 
bring  forth  and  bud,  that  it  may  give  seed 
96 


GOD'S  WAY  NATURAL. 

to  the  sower  and  bread  to  the  eater.  The 
great  miracle  is  not  the  rending  of  a  moun- 
tain, but  the  quiet  opening  of  the  earth  at 
a  decillion  of  places  where  the  grass,  the 
flower,  the  grain  may  come  through.  The 
great  miracle  is  not  the  storm  that  would 
shatter  the  trees,  or  the  fire  belching  out 
of  a  mountain  and  covering  a  city,  but  the 
rain  which  falls  from  heaven  and  the  sun 
which  warms  the  earth  and  makes  it  fruit- 
ful. Not  to  denude  the  earth,  but  to  re- 
plenish it  and  make  it  a  fit  habitation  for 
man,  this  is  God's  way,  the  gracious  pur- 
pose of  His  eternal  love.  When  we  reflect 
upon  this  purpose  and  upon  this  love  we 
see  how  perfectly  natural  it  is  for  God  to 
be  in  His  world,  for  it  is  the  complete 
thought  of  His  mind  and  the  fullest  ex- 
pression of  His  activity.  So  when  science 
brings  us  face  to  face  with  law  and  order, 
cause  leading  to  effect,  antecedent  going 
before  consequent,  we  do  not  become  fear- 
ful and  think  we  are  going  to  be  robbed 
7  97 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

of  our  God,  but  we  rejoice.  For  the  man 
of  science  has  merely  shown  us  God  in  a 
more  wonderful  way,  has  permitted  us  to 
see  just  a  little  more  of  His  marvelous 
mind  and  of  His  will,  which  exhibit  to  us 
His  love  that  is  wider  than  the  sea.  And 
we  exclaim  with  the  psalmist,  "0  Lord, 
how  manifold  are  Thy  works,  in  wisdom 
hast  Thou  made  them  all,  the  earth  is  full 
of  Thy  riches." 

As  God's  way  in  nature  is  to  develop 
this  earth  for  the  good  of  man,  so  is  it  His 
way  in  history  to  develop  man  for  His 
glory.  In  history  as  in  nature  we  find 
God's  way  natural.  Political  upheavals 
and  social  cataclysms  line  the  pages  of 
civilization's  march.  But  these  are  not 
according  to  His  purpose  nor  due  to  His 
absence.  They  result  from  man's  inter- 
vention, when  he  has  undertaken  to  run 
God's  world,  and  has  thereby  prevented 
His  Spirit  from  being  manifest.  God  was 
most  clearly  revealed  to  the  ancient  Is- 
98 


GOD'S  WAY  NATURAL. 

raelites  and  most  tangibly  felt  by  them 
when  they  were  serving  Him  and  not  the 
idols  of  heathen  nations.  God  was  in  their 
history,  we  say.  But  He  was  not  only  in 
their  history ;  He  was  in  the  history  of  the 
world  before,  and  has  been  in  the  history 
of  the  world  ever  since.  "We  read  of  their 
wars  and  think  they  were  fighting  all  the 
time,  and  so  forget  that  there  were  long 
periods  of  years  when  they  were  at  peace 
and  rest,  when  every  man  sat  under  his 
own  vine  and  fig  tree  and  could  cultivate 
the  arts  of  peace  and  learn  God's  way  of 
progress. 

Events  of  Bible  times  are  not  any  more 
divine  than  the  events  of  to-day.  For  God 
could  be  no  more  active  and  present  in  the 
time  of  the  Israelites  than  He  is  present 
and  active  now.  If  we  are  ready  to  af- 
firm that  God  was  more  intimately  related 
to  His  people  then  than  He  is  now,  we 
affirm  that  He  was  in  the  world,  but  has 
left  it  or  is  only  indifferent  about  it.  So 
99 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

we  put  Him  out  of  the  world  again  and 
impugn  His  love.  Even  when  it  came  to 
conflict  the  Divine  Hand  moved  no  nearer 
the  human  than  it  does  to-day.  God  was 
in  the  wars  of  Saul  and  David,  but  no  more 
so  than  in  the  wars  which  established  our 
independence  and  maintained  our  Union. 
We  believe  that  God  led  George  Washing- 
ton and  Abraham  Lincoln,  but  we  can  not 
believe  they  had  any  surer  light  from 
heaven  than  the  head  of  our  Nation  can 
have  now.  Events  of  four  thousand  or  four 
hundred  or  fifty  years  ago  were  extraor- 
dinary in  a  marked  degree,  and  they  seem 
more  so  to  us.  But  they  were  as  familiar 
every-day  events  to  the  men  of  those  times 
as  the  Eussian-Japanese  war,  for  example, 
was  to  us  just  a  few  years  ago.  So 
familiar  were  they  that  doubtless  many 
thought  at  the  time  God  had  nothing  to 
do  with  them.  So  the  events  of  to-day 
are  so  familiar  to  us  that  we  are  unable 
to  see  God  in  them.  In  five  decades  or 
100 


GOD'S  WAY  NATURAL. 

five  centuries  the  world  will  see,  as  we 
can  not  see  now,  how  God's  educating  hand 
is  stretched  before  us.  Perhaps  if  we  were 
not  so  matter-of-fact  we  could  see  God  in 
His  world  even  more  now.  If  the  Hebrew 
writers  had  written  eighteenth  or  nine- 
teenth century  history  as  they  wrote  the 
history  of  their  own  time,  they  would  have 
pictured  God  in  this  world  far  more  than 
we  do.  And  we  should  have  such  state- 
ments in  our  histories  as  the  following: 
"And  the  Lord  came  unto  Washington  as 
he  was  sitting  in  his  tent  and  said,  Be- 
hold, the  Hessians  are  rioting  this  night 
beyond  the  river.  Get  thee  up,  therefore, 
and  cross  over,  for  the  Lord  hath  surely 
given  them  into  thy  hand.  And  Washing- 
ton arose  and  did  as  he  was  bid,  for  he 
knew  that  it  was  the  Lord  which  spoke." 
And  as  we  follow  the  American  army 
crossing  the  Delaware  on  that  icy  night 
with  its  meager  equipment,  are  we  follow- 
ing anything  less  miraculous  than  Joshua 
101 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

around  the  walls  of  Jericho  or  Gideon  intcv 
battle  with  the  Midianites?  Was  God 
fighting  with  Jonathan  when  he  scaled  the 
heights  of  Michmash,  and  not  with  Dewey 
when  he  sailed  up  Manila  Bay?  What 
would  not  a  Hebrew  writer,  with  all  his 
imagery,  have  made  of  that  Sunday's 
flight  and  pursuit  at  the  entrance  to  San- 
tiago Harbor  twelve  years  ago  ?  He  would 
have  seen  God  visible  in  the  heavens  and 
have  heard  His  voice  audible  as  in  the  days 
of  Joab  and  Jehu  and  Hezekiah.  It  may 
seem  strange  to  take  these  familiar  events 
and  compare  them  with  those  so-called 
sacred  or  divine  events.  But  if  we  can 
believe  in  a  God  at  all  we  must  believe 
that  He  is  present  with  us  now  as  He  was 
present  then,  even  though  we  can  not  see 
His  hand  nor  hear  His  voice.  Would  we 
have  God  suddenly  appear  in  a  flash  of 
lightning  and  with  a  voice  of  thunder,  take 
the  reins  of  government  in  His  hands  and 
depose  men  as  mere  puppets?  Of  what 
102 


GOD'S  WAY  NATUBAL. 

possible  use  could  this  world  be  to  Him 
then,  and  what  significance  could  man  have 
in  His  sight?  Or  would  we  have  His  Spirit 
working  in  the  hearts  of  men  and  breath- 
ing abroad  the  divine  wisdom,  guiding  man 
with  intelligence  and  sympathy  through  a 
world  prepared  for  him,  so  that  evermore 
he  could  work  out  his  own  salvation  and 
be  in  harmony  with  God's  will? 

Man  makes  mistakes,  assemblies  blun- 
der, nations  clash,  but  nevertheless  the 
Spirit  of  God  is  manifest.  It  is  more  mani- 
fest now  than  it  ever  has  been,  and  when 
it  becomes  completely,  perfectly  manifest, 
then  will  man  and  nation  have  done  God's 
will  on  earth  as  it  is  done  in  heaven.  "Not 
by  might  nor  by  power,  but  by  My  Spirit 
saith  the  Lord." 

A  quiet,  orderly,  natural  education  of 
man,  this  is  God's  way  in  history.  Ee- 
sults  come  slowly,  and  perhaps  we  may 
not  see  them,  but  that  is  not  our  concern. 
We  see  Him  leading  the  rank  and  file 
103 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

across  the  centuries  and  we  can  trust  Him 
to  lead  us  still. 

Just  as  God  is  present  in  nature  and 
in  history,  so  is  He  present  in  the  human 
soul.  And  His  way  is  still  natural.  Now 
and  then  He  enters  some  soul  and  there 
is  a  mighty  convulsion,  as  though  the  very 
deeps  of  that  soul  were  disturbed  and 
loosened  from  their  foundation,  and  there 
is  a  cry  as  if  the  demons  which  possessed 
that  soul  were  issuing  forth,  leaving  it  as 
one  dead.  A  soul  wholly  abandoned  to 
sin  and  shame  needs  to  be  thus  torn  be- 
fore the  Spirit  of  God  can  manifest  itself. 
And  that  God  can  and  does  come  thus  into 
the  human  soul  is  evidenced  by  Harold 
Begbie's  remarkable  book  on  "  Twice-Born 
Men."  But  that  is  not  the  way  the  Holy 
Spirit  would  work.  His  is  the  natural 
way.  "Suffer  the  little  children  to  come 
unto  Me  and  forbid  them  not,  for  of  such 
is  the  Kingdom  of  heaven."  God  is  in 
every  human  soul  born  into  the  world.  He 
104 


GOD'S  WAY  NATUKAL. 

does  not  come  in  afterward.  If  we  insist 
upon  this  we  insist  upon  an  absentee  God 
who  now  and  then  not  only  must  come 
into  the  world  which  He  created  to  adjust 
it,  but  who  must  come  into  the  human  soul 
in  an  external  way  to  give  it  enlighten- 
ment. God  is  in  the  human  soul  and  by 
nurture  and  training  He  evermore  pos- 
sesses that  soul.  Beligion,  therefore,  is 
not  supernatural,  imposed  from  without, 
but  it  is  natural,  developed  from  within. 
Men  have  tried  to  discover  God  in  the 
human  soul  by  cold  calculation,  but  have 
failed.  Many  have  associated  Him  with 
visible  manifestations,  with  an  outward 
witnessing  of  His  Spirit,  with  a  peculiar 
experience  or  sensation,  but  in  all  these 
outward  signs  the  Lord  is  not  to  be  found. 
They  may  accompany  the  new  birth  of  a 
soul,  but  only  because  the  Spirit  of  God 
is  within.  "We  discover  Him  in  the  soul 
when  we  seek  to  do  right.  Every  right 
act  accomplished  puts  us  in  accord  with 
105 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

the  system  of  righteousness  by  which  this 
world  and  humanity  are  moved.  In  this 
system  the  dictates  of  a  quickened  con- 
science perfectly  fit,  and  evermore  are  we 
closely  associated  with  a  "spiritual  order, 
larger,  higher,  worthier"  than  ourselves. 
This  spiritual  world  becomes  real  to  us  and 
our  faith  therein  unshakable.  There  are 
voices  without  and  within  prompting  to  a 
better  life.  We  begin  to  understand  these 
voices,  we  hear  the  divine  presence 
breathing  in  our  souls.  For,  as  President 
Hyde  has  said,  "He  who  does  right  comes 
to  see  the  good ;  and  he  who  sees  the  good 
finds  God  and  blessedness." 

Every  step  in  this  religious  experience 
is  natural.  It  is  simply  the  unfolding  of 
the  divine  in  man  through  his  own  instru- 
mentality. It  is  God  working  in  man  to 
do  and  to  will  of  His  good  pleasure  to 
enable  man  to  work  out  his  own  salvation. 
And  God  "works  in"  through  the  Spirit 
of  Christ  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  These  are 
106 


GOD'S  WAY  NATUEAL. 

the  witnesses  of  God's  presence.  So,  too, 
is  there  the  natural  unfolding  of  the  di- 
vine in  the  child,  who.  has  not  yet  come 
to  years  of  understanding,  by  the  proper 
care  and  training  of  its  parent.  It  is  the 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  First  the  blade, 
then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear. 
But  before  the  blade  can  begin  to  grow 
the  divine  seed  must  be  sown,  and  this  is 
God  implanted  in  the  human  soul. 

To  see  God  in  nature,  in  history,  in  the 
human  soul,  ever  striving  to  work  in  a 
quiet  and  natural  way,  seeking  to  enlist 
the  sympathy  and  co-operation  of  man — 
this  is  a  vision  that  makes  life  worthy 
and  honorable  and  sublime.  It  prompts 
us  to  see  life  in  its  true  relation,  and  shows 
us  the  sacred  trust  committed  to  our  care 
when  as  human  souls  we  were  placed  in 
this  world  to  become  co-workers  with  the 
Divine  Spirit. 


107 


VII. 

THE  BELIEFS  OF  UNBELIEF. 

Heeod  of  old  gives  us  a  splendid  starting 
point  to  meet  the  materialistic  argument 
which  would  shut  us  off  from  an  infinitely 
wise  and  loving  Creator.  The  reports 
concerning  Jesus  had  spread  abroad  so 
persistently  that  finally  He  was  the  object 
of  conversation  in  Herod's  throne-room. 
Some  of  the  courtiers  were  saying  that 
Jesus  was  Elias  the  prophet,  others  that 
He  was  a  modern  prophet  like  Amos  or 
Isaiah  or  Jeremiah.  When  Herod  heard 
thereof,  he  said,  "It  is  the  man  John  whom 
I  beheaded;  he  is  risen  from  the  dead." 

This  statement,  incidentally  thrown  into 
the  narrative,  arrests  our  attention,  for  it 
gives  us  an  intimation  as  to  how  far  an 
108 


THE  BELIEFS  OF  UNBELIEF. 

unbeliever  will  go  in  his  belief.  John  the 
Baptist  had  passed  out  of  life,  he  could 
not  be  interrogated  nor  examined;  Jesus 
was  standing  in  the  multitude  teaching  and 
healing — every  word  and  act  could  be 
ground  fine  in  the  crucible  of  proof.  Yet 
Herod  was  readier  to  believe  that  a  head- 
less man  had  returned  to  life  than  exam- 
ine on  his  own  account  the  claims  of  a  liv- 
ing one.  Strange  as  this  may  seem,  such 
vagaries  and  extravagances  of  unbelief  are 
not  confined  to  Herod's  day.  "We  find  them 
among  all  ages  and  among  all  peoples. 
We  are  continually  meeting  with  the  be- 
liefs of  unbelief  which  put  a  far  greater 
strain  upon  the  human  intellect  than  the 
beliefs  of  belief. 

In  the  first  place,  we  meet  that  ever-re- 
curring statement  that  no  personal  intel- 
lect and  hence  no  personal  love  is  in  and 
behind  the  phenomena  of  nature  and  the 
ongoing  of  the  universe ;  that  there  is  only 
a  blind,  unintelligent,  unconscious  working 
109 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

of  material  forces,  which  in  some  way  got 
to  going  and  through  which  the  world,  as 
we  know  it,  is  to  be  explained.  In  a  word, 
there  is  no  God, — only  matter.  The  beliefs 
of  the  unbelievers  in  God  and  His  cre- 
ative power  begin  where  all  can  stand; 
namely,  we  know  nothing  of  that  which 
was  before  the  present  state  of  things  and 
that  speculation  about  this  former  state 
is  futile.  The  believer  is  content  to  say, 
"In  the  beginning  God  created.' '  The  un- 
believer, forgetting  his  assertion  that 
speculation  of  the  beginning  of  things  is 
futile,  claims — and  I  am  quoting  from  the 
most  noted  of  the  present-day  members  of 
the  materialistic  school — that  "we  must 
make  a  start  somewhere' '  and  "are  there- 
fore compelled  to  posit  a  primordial,  nebu- 
lous, non-luminous  state,"  in  which  the 
atoms  and  molecules  of  different  sizes  and 
unevenly  distributed  awakening  by  col- 
lision with  each  other  began  to  rearrange 
themselves  in  such  form  that  what  seemed 
110 


THE  BELIEFS  OF  UNBELIEF. 

to  be  absolute  likeness  became  unlike  in 
character — an  ape  and  a  man,  e.  g. — what 
was  shapeless  became  shapely,  what  sim- 
ple more  complex,  till  the  highest  com- 
plexity in  the  development  of  living  matter 
was  reached.  What  I  have  just  quoted 
was  not  written  as  a  jest,  but  was  seri- 
ously set  down  in  a  professedly  scientific 
work,  and  is  accepted  by  many  believers 
in  the  materialistic  school.  When  we  ex- 
amine this  statement,  what  have  we?  In 
the  beginning,  not  God  but  atoms.  Where 
these  atoms  originally  came  from  no  sci- 
entist has  ever  assumed  to  tell  us.  These 
atoms  were  in  a  "nebulous,  non-luminous 
state.' '  They  began  moving  toward  and 
colliding  with  each  other — who  started  the 
movement  we  are  not  told — and  in  this  col- 
lision they  were  awakened;  i.  e.,  a  lifeless 
object  by  simply  bumping  up  against  an- 
other lifeless  object  became  endowed  with 
life.  In  this  movement  the  atoms  pro- 
ceeded to  rearrange  and  shape  themselves, 
111 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

changing  like  into  unlike,  shapeless  into 
shapely,  simple  into  complex,  until  out  of 
nothing  plant  and  animal  life,  and  finally 
man,  was  evolved. 

This  is  the  belief  of  unbelief;  the  be- 
lief of  those  who  do  not  believe  in  a  God 
of  intelligence  and  creative  force.  If  I 
should  strew  a  platform  with  printer's 
type  and  say  that  the  lifeless  pieces  of 
lead  would  come  together  and  form  them- 
selves into  an  orderly  and  intelligent  com- 
position, we  should  have  a  statement  sim- 
ilar to  that  of  the  materialistic  scientist 
or  philosopher  who  tells  us  that  a  lot  of 
lifeless  lumps  got  together  and  formed  this 
earth  with  all  its  complexity  of  life.  Or 
if  I  should  set  a  child  to  playing  with  these 
types  and  say  that  it  will  so  distribute 
them  as  to  make  intelligible  reading,  we 
should  have  a  statement  similar  to  that  of 
the  materialistic  agnostic,  who  tells  us  that 
lifeless  forms  can  take  on  order  and  mean- 
ing without  the  intervention  of  a  conscious 
112 


THE  BELIEFS  OF  UNBELIEF. 

and  knowing  intelligence.  It  took  a  mind 
acute  and  alert  to  invent  and  perfect  mov- 
able type,  and  it  takes  a  mind  keen  and 
quick  so  to  distribute  them  as  to  make  in- 
telligible reading  matter.  And  it  took  a 
mind  to  create  lifeless  as  well  as  living 
matter  and  a  mind  so  to  distribute  and  re- 
distribute these  that  the  highest  and  most 
complex  form  of  human  existence  could 
result. 

There  are  three  insuperable  difficulties 
that  the  materialistic  evolutionist  encoun- 
ters. First,  to  declare  that  there  is  no 
God  assumes  a  far  greater  degree  of  in- 
telligence and  knowledge  than  to  assume 
that  there  is  a  God.  For  example,  to  adapt 
an  illustration  from  another,  suppose 
Eobinson  Crusoe  on  his  island  had  wanted 
to  assure  himself  that  there  was  no  other 
human  being  on  that  island.  It  would 
have  been  necessary  for  him  to  explore 
every  nook  and  cranny  of  the  island  and 
familiarize  himself  thoroughly  with  it,  and 
8  113 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

even  after  he  had  acquired  this  knowledge 
he  could  not  have  rested  content,  because 
he  could  not  have  known  whether  after  he 
had  explored  the  east  side  of  the  island, 
e.  g.,  and  then  gone  to  the  west  side,  or 
vice  versa,  somebody  had  not  landed.  In 
other  words,  in  order  for  him  to  be  cer- 
tain that  there  was  no  one  else  on  the 
island  he  would  have  had  to  have  a  super- 
human knowledge  which  would  have  ac- 
quainted him  with  every  part  of  the  island 
at  every  moment  of  time.  And  yet,  how 
did  he  learn  that  the  island  was  or  had 
been  inhabited?  By  a  single  footprint  in 
the  sand.  So  when  we  undertake  to  say 
there  is  no  God  in  this  universe  we  are 
undertaking  to  say  only  what  an  in- 
finite and  omniscient  mind  could  know. 
"Whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  the  simplest 
blade  of  grass  makes  God's  presence 
known. 

Lord  Kelvin,  recognized  as  one  of  the 
greatest  leaders  of  physical  science,  says : 
114 


THE  BELIEFS  OF  UNBELIEF. 

"  Scientific  thought  is  compelled  to  accept 
the  idea  of  Creative  Power.  Forty  years 
ago  I  asked  Liebig,  walking  somewhere 
in  the  country,  if  he  believed  that  the 
grass  and  the  flowers  which  he  saw  around 
us  grew  by  mere  chemical  forces.  He  an- 
swered, 'No,  no  more  than  I  could  believe 
that  the  books  of  botany  describing  them 
could  grow  by  mere  chemical  forces. ' 
Every  action  of  human  free  will  is  a 
miracle  to  physical  and  chemical  and 
mathematical  science.' ! 

Secondly,  if  we  assume  that  there  is  no 
intelligent  mind  back  of  creation  we  are 
making  this  non-intelligent  substance  more 
intelligent  than  the  highest  intelligence  of 
man.  For  example,  in  our  modern  labora- 
tories our  chemists  are  able  to  make  imi- 
tation garnets  and  even  small  diamonds 
which  deceive  all  but  the  expert  lapidarist. 
No  one  would  deny  that  great  skill  and 
knowledge  on  the  part  of  these  chemists 
are  required  to  produce  these  results,  that 
115 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

a  governing  mind  of  the  highest  capacity 
is  present  and  active  in  every  stage  of 
the  process.  Place  one  of  these  " paste" 
diamonds  beside  a  large  stone  of  clearest 
water,  mined  out  of  Mother  Earth.  Must 
there  be  an  intelligence  behind  a  paste 
diamond  and  none  behind  a  Koh-i-noor? 
Is  the  inferior  product  the  result  of  many 
years  of  patient  study  and  wearisome 
work,  the  superior  stone  the  result  of  mere 
chance?  Herod,  in  his  belief  that  a  head- 
less man  was  speaking  the  words  and  do- 
ing the  deeds  of  Jesus,  is  out-Heroded  in 
the  belief  of  intelligent  men  who  ask  us 
to  believe  with  them,  that  there  is  no  mind 
back  of  our  minds,  that  we  are  here 
through  mere  chance,  and  that  this  world 
is  the  result  of  a  collision  among  lifeless 
particles  that  came  from  nobody  knows 
where. 

The  third  difficulty  is  that  he  who  says 
there  is  no  infinite  and  supreme  mind  back 
of  all  natural  phenomena  can  not  get  along 
116 


THE  BELIEFS  OF  UNBELIEF. 

in  his  argument  without  making  room  for 
such  a  mind.  If  there  were  no  God,  man 
would  have  to  create  Him  in  order  to  ex- 
plain his  own  power  of  mind  and  will. 
So  the  agnostic,  who  denies  the  existence 
of  a  personal  God  on  one  hand,  must  sub- 
stitute the  equivalent  of  such  a  God  on  the 
other.  He  speaks  of  an  "  idea ' '  or  a  "  blind 
will,"  or  a  "sublimated  unconsciousness," 
or  a  "moral  order,"  or  the  "eternal  not 
ourselves."  But  when  we  analyze  the 
terms  we  find  each  one  of  them  implies  the 
very  thing  the  agnostic  and  materialist 
would  deny,  i.  e.,  personality.  And  as  soon 
as  we  admit  that  there  is  a  personality 
back  of  the  phenomena  of  this  world  we 
put  ourselves  logically  in  the  same  place 
with  the  Hebrew  who  wrote,  "In  the  be- 
ginning God. ' '  And  we  can  quote  the  most 
eminent  advocates  of  this  very  theory 
against  themselves.  Darwin  wrote  that  the 
more  he  studied  nature  the  more  was  he 
"impressed  with  the  conclusion  that  the 
117 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

contrivances  and  beautiful  adaptations" 
of  nature  "transcend  in  an  incomparable 
degree  the  contrivances  and  adaptations 
which  the  most  fertile  imagination  of  the 
most  imaginative  man  could  suggest  with 
unlimited  time  at  his  disposal."  Huxley, 
in  his  famous  illustration  of  a  tadpole  de- 
veloping in  his  slimy  cradle,  said:  "After 
watching  the  process  hour  by  hour,  one  is 
almost  involuntarily  possessed  by  the  no- 
tion that  some  more  subtle  aid  to  vision 
than  an  achromatic  object  glass  would  show 
the  hidden  artist1  with  his  plan  before  him, 
striving  with  skillful  manipulation  to  per- 
fect his  work."  And  at  another  time, 
speaking  of  the  wonders  of  crystallog- 
raphy, he  said  there  were  "whole  squad- 
rons of  molecules  under  a  governing  eye 
[whose  governing  eye?]  arranging  them- 
selves in  battalions,  gathering  around  dis- 
tinct centers"  until  the  perfect  crystal 
was  formed.    "Here  there  is  an  architect 


l  The  italics  are  not  In  the  original. 
118 


THE  BELIEFS  OF  UNBELIEF, 

at  work  who  makes  no  chips,  no  din;  one 
who  is  building  the  particles  into  perfect 
and  beautiful  crystals."  And  Herbert 
Spencer,  in  his  last  message  to  the  reading 
public,  indirectly  affirmed  that  the  simple 
faith  in  a  God  supreme  and  over  all 
transcended  rationalistic  arguments  as  to 
His  non-existence. 

Here,  then,  is  where  the  belief  of  un- 
belief brings  us.  The  scientist  who  denies 
the  existence  of  God — and  there  is  at  least 
one  prominent  scholar  left  who  does — and 
declares  there  can  be  neither  mind  nor  will 
back  of  nature's  phenomena,  still  must 
admit  that  "the  plant  and  the  animal  seem 
to  be  controlled  by  a  definite  design  in  the 
combination  of  their  several  parts,  just 
as  clearly  as  we  see  in  the  machines  which 
man  invents  and  constructs. ' '  A  machine, 
the  least  marvelous  of  all  *  the  wonders 
about  us,  needs  an  intelligent  mind  to  in- 
vent and  c-  skillful  hand  to  construct,  and 
the  flower  or  the  animal,  which  is  more 
119 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

marvelous,  seems  to  be  the  product  of  a 
definite  design.  But  man,  the  most  won- 
derful phenomenon  in  existence,  is  the  re- 
sult of  mere  chance,  a  chemical  ferment, 
an  albuminous  compound,  a  little  path  of 
protoplasm,  as  destitute  of  either  will  or 
responsibility  as  an  effervescent  powder. 
Far  more  easy  is  it  to  accept  the  most  child- 
like belief  in  God's  wisdom  and  love  and  in 
man's  freedom  and  responsibility. 

Another  cardinal  belief  of  unbelief  is 
that  Christianity  did  not  haw  a  super- 
natural beginning.  Jesus  was  a  great 
Prophet  and  Leader,  but  nevertheless  only 
a  man. 

When  we  begin  to  ask  ourselves  what 
Christian  civilization  stands  for  we  sum 
up  all  that  is  righteous  and  holy  and  be- 
neficent. Below  the  foundations  of  the 
hospital  and  asylum,  the  school  and  the 
Church,  is  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  And 
this  is  true  in  an  increasing  degree.  In 
the  last  century  a  book  appeared  in  Ger- 
120 


THE  BELIEFS  OF  UNBELIEF. 

many  that  startled  all  Europe,  and  the 
claim  was  made  that  the  death-knell  of 
Christianity  had  been  sounded.  This  book 
was  Strauss'  "Life  of  Jesus."  Hard  on 
its  heels  came  the  work  of  Benan,  and 
soon  everywhere  on  the  Continent,  and 
finally  in  England,  the  spirit  of  secularism 
and  atheism  was  running  strong  and  high 
to  the  disparagement  and  overthrow  of 
Christianity.  What  was  the  result?  As 
the  spray  on  the  crest  of  an  ocean  wave 
is  dissipated  in  the  sunlight,  so  was  this 
froth  and  fume  of  an  irreverent  and  un- 
knowing criticism  on  Christianity  turned 
to  nothing  by  the  life  and  light  of  the  pul- 
sating and  illuminating  spirit  of  Jesus 
Christ.  And  to-day,  while  we  are  far  be- 
low the  level,  we  are  more  active  than  ever 
in  making  His  ideal  the  controlling  one  in 
human  affairs.  "While  we  make  all  al- 
lowances for  difference  among  Christian 
Churches  and  sects,  there  is  to-day  more 
devotion  and  influence  in  the  world  that 
121 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

must  be  accounted  Christian  than  ever  be- 
fore, while  all  kinds  of  Christian  workers 
are  more  numerous  and  energetic  than 
ever.  Missionary  operations  alone  evi- 
dence a  degree  of  disinterested  zeal  never 
before  equaled  in  the  whole  course  of 
human  history.  The  spirit  of  Christianity 
is  more  dominant  in  the  world  to-day  than 
it  ever  was.  If  Jesus  Christ  was  a  mere 
man,  then  it  is  harder  to  believe  that  out 
of  such  a  limited  life  so  stupendous  a 
product  as  modern  civilization  could  have 
grown,  than  to  believe  that  He  was  more 
than  man — Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  the 
living  God. 

Turn  from  the  conquests  of  Christianity 
in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  and  the 
first  few  years  of  the  present  century  to 
the  first  century  and  see  there  the  conflict 
and  victory  presented.  If  we  should 
imagine,  to  adapt  another  illustration,  a 
lion  and  a  tiger  and  a  wolf  uniting  in  a 
desperate  effort  to  destroy  a  lamb  and 
122 


THE  BELIEFS  OF  UNBELIEF. 

failing  in  the  attempt,  we  should  have  a 
fair  parallel  of  what  actually  happened  in 
the  first  century.  Christianity,  as  a  weak 
and  trembling  lamb,  was  thrown  into  the 
very  midst  of  the  wolf  of  Jewish  hate  and 
the  lion  of  Greek  subtlety  and  the  tiger  of 
Eoman  might.  All  the  vitality  and  tenacity 
and  fanaticism  of  three  old  and  established 
nations,  two  in  their  turn  having  been 
world  powers  and  the  other  then  enjoying 
that  supremacy,  were  thrown  against  this 
weak  but  intrepid  spirit  of  true  religion. 
Jew  and  Greek  and  Eoman  were  thrown 
aside  as  the  hay  and  stubble  which  they 
were.  Here  is  a  fact  that  can  not  be  denied 
and  needs  to  be  explained.  What  is  the 
explanation  of  Gibbon,  e.  g.,  the  bold  an- 
tagonist of  the  supernatural  origin  of 
Christianity?  First,  because  the  early 
Christians  were  devoted  to  their  cause,  and 
second,  because  of  the  power  of  Constan- 
tine.  "What  was  the  cause  of  the  early 
Christians  and  what  made  them  devoted 
123 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

to  it,  and  what  gave  Constantine  his 
power?  Simply  and  purely  the  faith  of 
the  early  disciples  in  Jesus  Christ — a  faith 
that  they  did  not  generate  themselves,  but 
which  was  generated  and  inspired  by  the 
living  God  through  His  Messenger  on 
earth,  Jesus.  As  the  materialistic  unbe- 
liever can  not  account  for  this  world  with- 
out God,  so  neither  can  the  unbeliever  in 
the  supernatural  origin  of  Christianity  ac- 
count for  the  rise  and  spread  of  Chris- 
tianity except  on  the  assumption  that  Jesus 
was  more  than  a  mere  man. 

If  Christ  was  an  impostor,  His  mark  re- 
mains upon  history  and  must  be  accounted 
for.  "Whatever  be  the  theory  of  the  origin 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  creed  that  bears 
His  name,  He  remains  the  greatest  fact 
in  history.  "The  simple  record  of  three 
short  years  of  Christ's  active  life,"  says 
Lecky,  "has  done  more  to  regenerate  and 
soften  mankind  than  all  the  disquisitions 
of  philosophers  or  the  exhortations  of 
124 


THE  BELIEFS  OF  UNBELIEF. 

moralists."  It  is  far  more  difficult  to  be- 
lieve that  an  "impostor"  could  more  pro- 
foundly affect  the  human  race  than  all  the 
great  figures  of  history  put  together,  than 
to  believe  with  Peter  and  James  and  John 
that  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the 
living  God.  And  it  is  far  more  difficult  to 
believe  that  any  one,  especially  those  un- 
lettered Galilean  fishermen,  could  have  in- 
vented the  sayings  of  Jesus  or  imagined 
such  a  pure  and  lofty  life  as  the  Gospels 
present,  than  to  believe  that  Jesus  lived 
and  loved  and  that  His  disciples  recorded 
His  words  and  their  memory  of  Him  in 
the  simple  but  essentially  correct  narra- 
tives of  the  Gospel  writers.  "It  takes  a 
Christ  to  invent  a  Christ.  To  ask  us  to 
believe  that  some  nameless  and  forgotten 
impostor  invented  the  character  and  story 
of  Jesus  Christ,  preached  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  imagined  all  His  parables, 
forged  His  ethics,  conceived  in  His  name 
the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  and  of 
125 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

the  Good  Samaritan,  and  yet  was  Him- 
self throughout  the  whole  process  a  con- 
scious and  conscienceless  impostor — this  is 
the  wildest  flight  of  mere  unreason."  It 
out-Herods  Herod's  belief  of  unbelief. 


126 


vni. 

GOD  BESTING. 

God  was  active  in  His  creation  until  He 
brought  forth  man.  Then  He  rested.  This 
is  the  simple  account  of  Genesis.  We  may 
take  this  account  as  an  utterance  of  child- 
hood, beautiful  in  its  suggestiveness  to  be 
sure,  but  of  no  deeper  significance.  Many 
have  discarded  the  opening  verses  of  the 
Bible  because  they  find  them  in  conflict 
with  latter-day  science.  But  they  would 
have  no  value  for  them  even  as  poetic 
imagery.  Now  this  is  the  superficial  view 
of  the  Bible  which  many  men  who  ought 
to  know  better  take.  The  really  thought- 
ful man  to-day  does  not  look  to  the  Bible 
for  scientific  presentation  or  historical 
narrative.  As  an  authority  in  these  fields 
the  Book  has  lost  the  prominence  it  had 
127 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

years  ago.  But  the  loss  is  only  in  the 
seeming,  for  the  Bible  never  presumed  to 
be  an  authority  in  these  matters.  And  we 
welcome  this  seeming  loss,  because  it 
means  a  great  gain.  The  Bible  has  been 
restored  to  its  rightful  place,  the  place  of 
the  deepest,  the  truest,  the  most  perfect  in- 
terpretation of  the  fundamental  problems 
of  life.  We  may  know  a  thing  better  than 
we  are  able  to  explain.  We  may  have  con- 
ceptions which  outrun  actual  knowledge. 
And  our  attempt  to  put  our  ideas  in  forms 
for  others  to  understand  will  never  be  as 
successful  as  we  would  desire  because  we 
are  dependent  upon  the  imperfect  medium 
of  language  to  convey  our  thought.  This 
is  more  true  in  reference  to  the  writers 
of  Genesis  than  it  is  to  us.  Our  knowl- 
edge enables  us  to  state  our  facts  with 
more  preciseness.  But  it  is  a  grave  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  we  can  express  our 
thoughts,  those  deep,  underlying  facts  of 
our  existence,  with  the  suggestiveness  they 
128 


GOD  RESTING. 

did,  the  suggestiveness  which  carries  even 
the  last  vestige  of  their  meaning  to  the 
careful  and  sympathetic  reader  to-day. 

So  when  we  read  that  God  rested  after 
man  had  been  created,  and  not  before,  we 
do  not  think  so  much  of  a  physical  cre- 
ation, and  not  at  all  of  a  God  working 
around  in  the  world  as  a  contractor  might 
be  busy  with  a  house  until  it  was  ready 
for  tenancy;  we  think  of  the  importance 
of  man,  of  his  place  in  the  universe,  of 
his  relation  to  the  Almighty,  that  in  the 
mind  of  the  Biblical  writer  there  could 
be  no  break  in  the  work  of  creation,  no 
rest  from  its  arduous  labors,  until  man 
appeared.  Because  God,  as  it  were,  waited 
for  man  to  come,  do  we  have  a  flood  of 
light  thrown  not  only  upon  the  importance 
and  nature  of  man,  but  also  upon  the  na- 
ture, yes,  and  the  needs,  of  God. 

There  are  some  who  would  have  us  be- 
lieve that  our  world  is  the  result  of  a 
blindly  working  series  of  inanimate  forces. 
9  129 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

That  behind  the  world  as  we  see  it  is  not 
mind,  but  matter,  and  that  the  orderly  on- 
going of  the  world  is  not  due  to  a  guiding 
intelligence,  but  to  a  reign  of  law.  The 
wind  will  turn  a  windmill  and  a  stream 
of  water  will  make  the  water-wheel  revolve. 
Back  of  the  wind  and  back  of  the  water 
is  a  force  under  the  control  of  law,  and 
this  force  will  operate  according  to  cer- 
tain laws  of  the  universe  in  spite  of  every 
opinion  or  opposition  to  the  contrary. 
We  need  not  go  far  to  find  the  reign  of 
law  and  to  conclude  that  certain  things 
are  simply  because  they  are.  But  why 
should  we  be  asked  to  believe  that  behind 
these  laws  there  is  no  intelligent  person- 
ality giving  expression  to  Himself  in  or- 
derly procedure?  When  we  look  at  the 
water-wheel  turning  in  willing  response  to 
the  impulse  of  the  mountain  stream  we 
may  have  in  mind  the  law  of  gravitation 
and  the  power  of  natural  forces.  But  as 
we  really  consider  the  water-wheel  we 
130 


GOD  RESTING. 

think  of  a  mind  that  conceived  it  and  of 
human  hands  which  constructed  it.  As  it 
turns,  our  thought  is  led  on  further  to 
the  purpose  for  which  it  was  made  to  turn, 
and  we  see  men  at  work  in  sawmills  or 
at  looms.  And  the  last  thought  of  the 
power  resident  in  the  water  and  the  law 
of  gravitation  is  of  the  man,  the  person- 
ality, the  living,  breathing  being  who  has 
a  mind  to  conceive  and  a  hand  to  carry- 
out. 

Now,  if  the  power,  the  possibilities  of  a 
stream  of  water  lead  us  on  irresistibly  to 
a  personality  for  whose  use  evidently  the 
water  stream  and  the  law  of  falling  bodies 
were  brought  into  existence,  ought  our 
minds  not  also  be  led  back  to  another  Per- 
sonality bringing  life  out  of  death,  order 
out  of  chaos,  light  out  of  darkness?  If  we 
do  not  so  believe,  then  we  must  declare 
that  lifeless  matter,  which  has  come  from 
nobody  knows  where,  can  issue  in  living 
forms  under  a  process  of  law  which  no 
131 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

intelligence  has  conceived  or  made  opera- 
tive. In  simple  words,  we  must  insist  that 
from  nothing  something  can  come.  It  is 
not  sufficient,  therefore,  to  say  that  when 
we  speak  of  God  we  mean  a  force  or  energy 
which  is  forever  at  work  and  brings  to 
pass  all  the  phenomena  of  the  world  as 
we  know  them.  Human  striving  after 
reality  demands  something  more.  It  de- 
mands a  personality  as  well  as  a  force, 
a  mind  as  well  as  a  law,  a  will  as  well  as 
an  orderly  ongoing.  And  so  when  we  are 
told  that  God  was  active  until  man  was 
created,  we  have  what  the  human  heart 
demands,  a  personal  God.  For  man,  think- 
ing, willing,  doing,  with  powers  and  ca- 
pacities seemingly  commensurate  with  do- 
minion over  the  natural  world,  is  incon- 
ceivable, is  nonsense,  without  a  God  think- 
ing, willing,  doing,  with  infinite  powers, 
eternal  capacities.  The  personality  of 
man  can  be  explained  only  in  the  person- 
ality of  God.  In  the  very  dawn  of  the 
132 


GOD  RESTING. 

Hebrew  consciousness  this  stupendous 
truth  is  grasped.  And  it  means  more 
rather  than  less  to  us  because  it  was  set 
forth  in  words  of  poetry.  For  the  poet 
touches  the  deep  springs  of  life  as  the 
prose  writer  never  can.  His  imagery 
makes  us  forget  the  weary  road  of  logic 
and  enables  us  to  leap  with  Him  into  the 
very  center  of  divine  truth.  To  the  fact 
of  the  personality  of  God  we  have,  also 
in  poetry,  the  completing  truth — the  love 
and  care  of  a  Heavenly  Father: 

Back  of  the  loaf  is  the  snowy  flour, 

Back  of  the  flour  the  mill ; 
Back  of  the  mill  is  the  wheat  and  the  shower 

And  the  sun  and  the  Father's  will. 

But  personality  implies  communion. 
Man  can  not  live  alone.  He  needs  com- 
panionship. And  in  seeking  his  com- 
panions he  draws  on  the  deepest  resources 
and  susceptibilities  of  his  inner  life.  He 
would  not  only  have  true  companions,  he 
must  have  congenial  companions,  men  and 
133 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

women  who  can  inspire,  uplift,  ennoble 
him.  The  deep  in  his  soul  must  be  an- 
swered by  the  deeps  in  the  souls  of  others. 
Else  he  is  alone  on  an  uninhabited  and 
untillable  island.  Man  finds  the  compan- 
ionship he  seeks,  he  makes  friends  and  can 
commune  with  them.  He  can  interchange 
his  thoughts  and  his  feelings  with  their 
thoughts  and  feelings.  The  truer  the 
friend,  however,  the  more  inspiring  the 
intercourse,  the  more  irresistible  is  the 
mind,  the  heart  drawn  to  a  higher,  a  deeper 
communion,  the  soul  of  man  would  speak 
with  the  soul  of  God.  Again  we  turn  to 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  for  the  truest  ex- 
pression of  this  longing:  "As  the  hart 
panteth  after  the  water  brook  so  panteth 
my  soul  after  Thee,  0  God."  "Whom 
have  I  in  heaven  but  Thee,  and  there  is 
none  on  earth  beside  Thee." 

When  we  think  of  God,  the  Supreme 
Personal  Being,  lending  Himself  to  such 
approaches  by  man,  He  comes  near  to  His 
134 


GOD  BESTING. 

world.  Transcendent  He  is  as  we  see  His 
presence  on  "every  mountain-top,  in  every 
valley,  abroad  on  the  ocean,  shining  in  the 
skies,  painting  the  lilies,  coloring  the  sea- 
shells,  silvering  the  moon  and  the  stars. 
But  indwelling  is  He  also,  the  very  life 
of  the  flower,  the  light  of  the  sun,  the 
energy  of  the  soul.  Man  can  commune 
with  Him,  for  closer  is  He  than  breathing 
and  nearer  than  hands  and  feet.  In  Him 
man  finds  satisfaction  of  his  need  for  the 
communal  life;  his  spiritual  life  is  deep- 
ened, his  soul's  longing  intensified,  as  he 
approaches  the  Father;  the  fluttering 
heart  is  stilled,  the  heaving  breast  is 
quieted,  fears  are  calmed,  sorrows  are 
driven  away,-  the  heavy  loads  of  daily  life 
lightened.  No  wonder  Jesus  said,  "Come 
unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest. 9  9  For  His 
rest  was  in  communion  with  the  Father. 

Communing  with  God,  we  learn  also  how 
to  commune  with  man.    We  understand  the 
135 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

essentials,  we  learn  to  know  each  other, 
we  can  even  dispense  with  oral  expres- 
sions of  our  thoughts,  and  learn  what 
the  other  is  thinking  about  because  we  have 
so  intimately  related  ourselves  to  Him  in 
communion.  Hearts  beat  in  unison,  lives 
center  in  the  same  purposes  and  needs, 
wills  are  directed  to  the  furthering  of  the 
same  ends  because  souls  answer  to  souls 
as  they  answer  to  the  Infinite  Soul.  Blind 
eyes  are  opened,  palsied  feet  grow  firm, 
trembling  hands  are  steadied,  faltering  lips 
are  emboldened  as  the  life  flows  from  the 
soul  of  the  Eternal  into  the  souls  of  wait- 
ing men  and  women. 

Communion  with  an  ever-living,  ever- 
present  God  and  Father — this  is  why  the 
Creator  was  active  in  His  creation  until 
man  was  brought  forth.  But  communion 
implies  revelation.  Here  is  another  evi- 
dence, not  only  of  the  personality  of  God, 
but  of  the  purpose  He  had  in  creating 
man.  The  greatest  joy  we  have  is  in  tell- 
136 


GOD  BESTING. 

ing  another  some  good  thing,  and  if  that 
good  thing  will  work  to  his  benefit  our 
joy  is  unbounded.  A  light  brighter  than 
even  the  heavenly  lights,  as  they  sparkle 
with  such  transcendent  brilliance,  shines 
in  the  eyes  of  many  a  man  and  woman  as 
he  or  she  gives  to  make  another  happy. 
We  have  been  recipients  of  such  benefi- 
cence, and  our  hearts  have  leaped  and 
bounded  as  we  realized  the  love  which 
prompted  the  giving.  We  have  cared  more 
for  the  giver  than  for  the  gift.  For  that 
other  has  revealed  himself  or  herself  to 
us  and  we  have  understood.  So  God  re- 
veals Himself  to  His  creatures  and  they 
understand.  In  His  presence  is  fullness 
of  joy,  at  His  right  hand  are  pleasures 
for  evermore.  But  it  is  not  these  so  much 
which  we  covet  and  from  which  we  benefit. 
It  is  the  revelation  we  have  of  God,  the 
glimpse  we  have  of  His  Father-soul,  as  He 
opens  up  to  us  His  heart  and  shows  us  His 
love. 

137 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

Then,  too,  we  can  understand  and  ap- 
preciate the  teaching,  the  learning  of  one 
who  is  wiser,  more  experienced  than  we 
if  we  are  in  intimate  fellowship  and  com- 
munion with  him.  The  lessons  that  are 
best  learned,  the  impressions  that  are  most 
lasting  and  influencing  are  those  the  child 
receives  at  his  mother's  knee.  A  lasting 
blessing  comes  to  childhood,  and  later  man 
and  womanhood,  from  the  mother  who  is 
wise  as  well  as  loving,  firm  as  well  as  kind, 
who  can  give  what  is  best  and  truest  of 
her  mother-heart  to  her  inquiring  and 
trusting  child.  So  God,  who  is  infinite 
love,  all-comprehending  experience,  teaches 
us  our  lessons,  leads  us  into  the  way,  the 
truth,  the  life.  "We  learn  of  Him  because 
we  have  communed  with  Him  so  closely, 
because  we  wait  so  constantly  before  Him. 
We  continue  in  His  life,  we  come  to  know 
His  truth,  and  it  is  His  truth  alone  that 
makes  us  free. 

Again,  we  are  reproved  most  effectually 
138 


GOD  BESTING. 

by  the  one  who  loves  us  most  and  whom 
we  love  most.  He  knows  us  most  inti- 
mately, we  care  greatly  for  his  good 
opinion  of  us.  His  very  presence  is  a  re- 
vealing source  of  what  we  ought  to  be  and 
do.  We  would  not  have  his  outer  dis- 
approval of  our  acts,  and  far  less  would 
we  have  his  inner,  unexpressed  displeas- 
ure. Everything  that  is  good  in  him  ap- 
peals to  us.  How  much  more  so  does  the 
ever-loving  Father  reveal  to  us  our  weak- 
ness, put  us  on  our  guard,  and  by  prompt- 
ing us  to  show  and  do  our  best  and  truest, 
impart  to  us  the  strength  to  accomplish 
right  ends  and  effectualize  pure  motives. 
He  reveals  Himself  to  us  by  the  very  power 
of  His  love,  that  power  of  love  which  we 
experience  when  we  commune  with  Him. 
As  we  receive  this  revelation  all  other 
revelations  are  added  unto  us.  As  leaven 
is  an  energy  which  leavens  the  whole  lump, 
so  is  the  revelation  of  God  which  comes 
to  us  as  we  partake  of  His  love  and  re- 
139 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

spond  to  it,  the  potentializing  power  which 
holds  the  solution  of  this  world's  and  our 
life's  problems.  And  as  we  become  con- 
scious of  this  power  we  can  wait  for  the 
unfolding  of  the  mysteries  as  the  leafless 
tree  can  wait  for  the  springtime  and  the 
stalk  of  grain  for  the  autumn. 

To  let  man  commune  with  God  so  that 
God  could  reveal  Himself  to  man,  this  is 
the  truth  that  was  glimpsed  in  the  day- 
dawn  of  Hebrew  aspiration  when  the 
writer  unfolds  to  us  the  fact  that  the  Cre- 
ator was  active  in  His  creation  until  man, 
a  responsive  soul,  appeared.  For  this 
reason  God  exalted  man  and  raised  him 
above  every  living  creature,  giving  him 
capacities  to  conquer  himself  and  hold  in 
his  hands  the  guiding  and  restraining  reins 
of  nature. 

But  there  is  a  concluding  thought  about 
God  resting.  Using  the  naive  language  of 
the  narrative :  God  was  active  in  His  cre- 
ation, working  with  might  and  main,  bring- 
140 


GOD  EESTING. 

ing  a  world  into  existence  fit  for  man's 
habitation  and  development.  When  this 
was  finished  and  man  had  not  only  been 
created,  but  given  dominion  over  the  world, 
then  God,  satisfied  with  His  work — that  it 
was  good — rested  from  all  His  work  which 
He  had  made.  Notice,  He  first  blesses  man, 
the  male  and  the  female  which  He  had 
created,  and  then  He  says,  "Be  fruitful 
and  multiply  and  replenish  the  earth  and 
subdue  it,  and  have  dominion  over  every 
living  thing  that  moveth  upon  the  earth." 
As  though  He  should  have  said:  I  have 
made  the  earth  and  all  that  is  in  it  for 
you;  I  now  give  it  to  you,  take  it;  My 
labors  have  ended,  yours  have  begun.  A 
father  builds  up  a  magnificent  business, 
and  at  an  age  when  he  should  retire,  he 
calls  his  sons  who  have  been  active  with 
him  some  years  and  says  to  them,  This 
is  now  your  business;  conduct  it.  This 
very  inadequate,  and  yet,  perhaps,  start- 
ling illustration  makes  the  thought  of  the 
141 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

writer  clear  and  gives  us  his  idea  of  the 
presence  and  activity  of  God  in  His  world. 
We  need  not  go  far  underneath  to  find 
the  fundamental  truth.  God  can  make  a 
world  for  man,  give  him  all  the  possibili- 
ties and  opportunities  to  possess  and  en- 
joy that  world.  But  man  himself  •  must 
realize  it,  he  must  make  his  own  world,  he 
must  take  what  is  given  him,  manage  it 
and  bring  it  under  subjection,  and  in  the 
process  develop  his  own  powers  and  hidden 
resources.  The  father  retires  from  his 
business,  giving  it  over  to  his  boys,  but 
he  is  still  present;  he  is  there  to  advise, 
to  suggest,  and  even  although  he  travels 
into  a  far  country,  his  spirit  remains  be- 
hind. Again  and  again  this  controls  the 
actions  of  the  sons ;  what  would  father  do 
in  this  case?  they  will  ask;  what  did  he 
actually  do  in  such  matters?  And  the  in- 
spiration and  the  guiding  principle  will  be 
present  and  active.  So  God,  although  He 
142 


GOD  BESTING. 

laid  down  the  actual  work  which  is  for  man 
to  do  when  man  came  into  existence,  still 
is  present,  His  Spirit  is  all-pervasive,  His 
counsels  can  be  known  by  communing  with 
Him. 

Or  to  take,  perhaps,  a  better  illustration. 
A  father  shows  his  boy  how  to  do  a  cer- 
tain thing.  He  takes  him-  so  far  in  the 
process,  as  far  as  he  thinks  necessary. 
Then  he  says,  Now  you  go  on  and  learn 
how  to  finish  it.  By  and  by  the  boy  comes 
and  says,  "I  can  not  go  on,  I  do  not  know 
how  to  do  this  or  that  part  of  it."  The 
father  takes  the  matter  in  hand ;  if  the  boy 
really  can  not  proceed  alone,  he  instructs 
him  further;  but  if  he  can,  he  says,  "You 
are  able;  work  it  out  yourself."  So  God 
takes  us  step  by  step.  He  is  resting  from 
all  labors  which  we  can  and  must  do;  all 
power  is  given  into  our  hands.  But  if  we 
really  can  not  proceed,  if  we  really  are  not 
able  to  subdue  and  conquer,  then  He  bends 
143 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

His  ear  and  lends  His  hands  as  we  come 
to  Him,  and  is  a  very  present  help  in  time 
of  actual  need. 

Now,  this  is  the  principle  according  to 
which  God  has  been  ruled  from  the  begin- 
ning. In  a  real  sense,  He  has  rested  from 
all  the  work  which  He  has  made.  He  has 
given  the  world  to  man  and  has  expected 
him  to  subdue  it.  And  man  has  responded 
to  his  task.  The  histories  of  civilization 
and  of  intellectual  development  read  like 
miraculous  accounts  when  they  show  how 
man  has  been  superior  to  his  surroundings, 
has  controlled  the  laws  of  nature,  adapting 
himself  to  extremes  of  cold  and  heat,  bring- 
ing the  unyielding  ground  to  fertility,  mov- 
ing by  the  power  of  faith  over  and  through 
impassable  mountains,  until  climate  and 
soil  and  all  untoward  elements  were  under 
subjection.  The  continent  of  Europe, 
which  can  be  called  a  fruitful  garden  to- 
day, would  have  remained  a  morass,  a 
waste,  a  dark  continent  intellectually  and 
144 


GOD  BESTING. 

morally,  had  it  not  been  for  the  faith  and 
the  force  resident  in  man  to  make  it  fer- 
tile for  physical  and  spiritual  life.  And 
what  would  this  land  of  ours  be  to-day  had 
not  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  subdued  it?  The 
physical  world,  the  mental,  the  moral,  the 
spiritual  world  is  only  a  potentiality  for 
us;  we  must  realize  it  and  make  it  our 
own.  Go  in  and  possess  it,  comes  the  Scrip- 
tural command,  for  ye  are  well  able  to. 
We  may  be  sure  God  will  not  do  our  work 
for  us. 

So  God  rests  as  He  waits  for  us  to  labor 
to  bring  forth  the  harvest  which  He  has 
made  possible.  He  would  have  us  come 
into  our  own.  He  would  have  us  develop 
as  we  subdue  the  untamed  in  us,  as  we 
work  out  our  destinies,  as  we  finish  the 
work  which  He  has  given  us  to  do.  But 
how  inertly  we  respond  to  the  task,  how 
indifferently  we, receive  the  inheritance, 
how  stubbornly  we  refuse  to  be  guided  by 
His  Spirit,  how  often  we  waste  our  sub- 
10  145 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

stance  and  come  to  grief!  God  waits  for 
the  manifestation  of  His  sons,  and  so 
patiently  is  He  waiting  for  them  that  all 
nature  groaneth  and  travaileth  for  the  sons 
of  God  to  show  themselves  worthy  of  the 
love  and  confidence  of  the  Father.  In  man 
alone  could  God  see  His  likeness,  with  man 
alone  could  God  commune,  to  man  alone 
could  God  reveal  Himself.  Now  He  waits 
for  man's  response. 


146 


IX. 

THE  DIALOGUE  WITH  GOD. 

The  dialogue  of  the  boy  Samuel  with  the 
Lord  is  one  of  the  most  tender  touches 
in  the  Old  Testament.  We  are  impressed 
with  grandeur  and  awe  as  we  hear  Jehovah 
on  Sinai  thundering  out  His  laws  to  Moses ; 
a  sense  of  commiseration  comes  over  us 
as  we  hear  Elijah  in  the  desert  telling 
God  of  his  sorry  plight;  with  Jeremiah 
we  are  tempted  to  wail  and  lament  as  he 
brings  his  grievances  to  God,  who  seems 
to  have  abandoned  Israel.  But  with  the 
child  Samuel,  in  the  dead  of  night,  lying 
near  the  ark  of  the  Lord  in  the  dim  light 
of  the  temple  lamp,  we  are  in  sympathetic 
accord  and  are  moved  by  the  simplicity 
and  trusting  faith  of  the  young  lad.  Three 
147 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

times  we  see  him  roused  from  deep  slum- 
ber by  a  strange  sound,  and  listening  in- 
tently, thinking  his  aged  master,  Eli,  has 
called,  run  obediently  to  him  saying,  "Here 
I  am,"  ready  to  minister  unto  him.  And 
three  times  he  runs  back  to  his  cot.  Awak- 
ened a  fourth  time,  he  hastens  again  to 
Eli,  and  is  told  that  the  Lord  is  speaking 
and  he  should  listen.  Then  he  answers, 
"Speak,  Lord,  for  Thy  servant  heareth." 
It  was  an  important  word  he  was  to 
hear.  Eli,  the  priest  at  the  temple  of 
the  Lord,  had  grown  old  indulging  his  two 
wayward  sons  in  their  every  wish  and  giv- 
ing over  to  them  unrightly  his  priestly 
functions,  until  the  temple  service  was 
thoroughly  debauched  and  the  worship  of 
God  profaned.  The  moment  had  come 
when  the  priest  was  to  be  deposed  and 
the  sons  punished.  So  the  inspired  writer 
takes  this  naive  but  effective  method  of 
showing  how  the  wrath  of  a  just  God  must 
be  visited  upon  a  sinning  people.  It  has 
148 


THE  DIALOGUE  WITH  GOD. 

a  religious  value  for  us  that  is  well  worth 
considering.  Like  all  religious  language, 
it  is  poetical  and.  imaginative.  We  find 
that  the  earliest  writers  of  Hebrew  litera- 
ture were  content  to  state  their  facts  with 
little  or  no  religious  coloring,  but  that 
those  writing  three  or  four  centuries  later, 
after  or  during  those  great  periods  of  re- 
ligious intensity  that  so  mark  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Israelitish  people,  were  deeply 
imbued  with  the  religious  and  spiritual 
sense  of  all  outward  phenomena  and  his- 
torical fact.  So  they  spoke  the  inspired 
language  of  God's  poets  and  made  the  deep 
truths  of  God  known. 

Tennyson  tells  us  to  speak  to  God,  for 
closer  is  He  to  us  than  breathing  and 
nearer  than  hands  and  feet.  We  do  speak 
to  Him,  but  not  as  though  He  were  physic- 
ally present  in  form  and  voice  as  a  mere 
man.  God  speaks  to  us  and  tells  us  that 
our  sin  will  be  punished  and  our  goodness 
rewarded,  but  not  with  the  audible  voice 
149 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

of  human  speech.  God  is  Spirit  and  in 
spirit  He  reveals  Himself  to  His  children. 
Thus  He  talks  with  us,  and  thus  He  talked 
with  Moses  and  Samuel  and  Isaiah.  He 
is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever, 
with  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither 
shadow  of  turning.  If  we  should  insist, 
therefore,  that  God  came  in  times  of  old 
and  spoke  to  men  with  an  audible  voice 
we  should  have  to  insist  that  God  must 
speak  to  us  in  an  audible  voice  to-day, 
and  as  He  does  not  so  speak  to  us,  we 
then  should  be  forced  to  conclude  that  God 
is  less  near  to  His  world  and  His  children 
than  He  was  in  times  past,  that  He  has 
left  this  world  and  His  children  to  their 
fate. 

This  is  not  the  method  or  the  will  of  a 
God  who  changeth  not,  who  is  near  to  every 
one  of  His  creatures.  He  spoke  to  Samuel 
just  as  surely  as  bur  friend  speaks  to  us, 
but  it  was  in  the  language  of  that  day. 
He  spoke  just  as  truly  to  Paul,  but  it  was 
150 


THE  DIALOGUE  WITH  GOD. 

in  the  language  of  that  day.  He  spoke  to 
Savonarola  and  Luther  and  Huss  and 
Wickliffe  and  Wesley  and  Phillips  Brooks, 
but  it  was  in  the  language  of  the  days  in 
which  these  men  lived.  Had  He  not  used 
the  language  of  their  day,  these  men  could 
not  have  understood  Him,  and  could  they 
have  understood  Him,  they  could  not  have 
made  His  word  known  to  their  fellow-men 
without  speaking  in  the  language  of  their 
day.  So  the  God  and  Father  of  the  human 
soul  speaks  to  each  generation  in  the  lan- 
guage of  that  generation,  and  the  listen- 
ing soul  hears  and  understands.  It  need 
only  to  say,  "  Speak,  Lord,  for  Thy  serv- 
ant heareth."  "  There  is  no  speech  or 
language  where  His  voice  is  not  heard,  His 
line  is  gone  out  through  all  the  earth  and 
His  words  unto  the  end  of  the  world.' ' 
God's  language  must  be  a  universal  lan- 
guage, for  while  there  are  divers  languages 
and  tongues  in  the  earth,  most  of  His  chil- 
dren speak  and  understand  only  one 
151 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

tongue.  If  He  were  thus  hampered,  how 
would  the  people  across  the  seas  and  in 
the  uttermost  part  of  the  earth  hear  Him? 
The  English  missionary  sails  to  the  savage 
islanders,  and  for  days  is  in  danger  of  be- 
ing torn  to  pieces,  but  God  is  speaking 
through  him  and  the  cannibals  soon  under- 
stand His  words.  It  is  a  language  of  gen- 
tleness and  fortitude,  of  kindness  and 
bravery,  of  self-sacrifice  and  love.  It  is 
God's  language  and  is  soon  translated  into 
the  human  speech  of  those  benighted  peo- 
ple. They  hear  it,  they  read  it,  they  under- 
I  stand  it. 

God  speaks  and  has  ever  spoken  His 
varied  language.  The  first  man,  talking 
with  Him  about  his  disobedience  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden  story,  heard  Him.  The  sin- 
crushed  soul  pleading  this  moment  for  re- 
lief hears  and  is  heard  by  the  Almighty. 
We  have  God  pictured  as  walking  in  the 
cool  of  the  evening  in  the  Garden  of  Eden 
and  searching  out  and  speaking  to  the  man 
152 


THE  DIALOGUE  WITH  GOD. 

who  has  disobeyed  His  commands  and  is 
hiding  from  Him,  and  are  apt  to  feel  that 
this  is  the  only  way  God  can  approach 
and  speak  to  us.  We  have  never  seen  or 
heard  Him  in  this  manner,  and  conclude 
that  God  is  as  far  away  from  us  as  the 
farthest  star  in  space.  Because  we  would 
see  Him  in  person  and  hear  Him  audibly, 
do  we  so  often  cry  out  bitterly  with  Car- 
lyle,  "If  God  would  only  speak  again  in 
these  days  as  He  has  spoken  in  other 
days."  Yet  the  voice  of  God  is  not  silent 
to-day.  He  only  does  not  hear  Him  who 
has  not  come  into  His  presence  and  said, 
"Speak,  Lord,  for  Thy  servant  heareth." 
Those  living  several  miles  from  the  ferry 
landing  in  a  Western  city  can  distinctly 
hear  the  whistles  of  the  boats  as  they  sound 
every  half -hour  on  leaving,  while  those  en- 
gaged in  daily  pursuits  in  the  heart  of  the 
city,  only  a  few  blocks  from  the  ferries, 
seldom  hear  the  whistles.  They  blow  just 
the  same,  but  in  the  noise  and  bustle  of 
153 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

the  streets  their  sound  is  completely  dead- 
ened. So  we  can  hear  the  voice  of  God 
coming  out  of  the  stillness  of  the  past, 
but  fail  to  hear  it  in  the  turmoil  and  con- 
fusion of  the  present.  It  was  in  the  cool 
of  the  evening  hour  when  God  spoke  to 
the  man  in  the  Garden  about  his  disobe- 
dience, and  to  Abraham  concerning  the  de- 
struction of  Sodom ;  it  was  in  the  solitude 
of  the  wilderness  that  He  spoke  to  Moses 
at  the  burning  bush,  and  to  Elijah  under 
the  juniper  tree;  it  was  in  the  stillness 
of  night  that  He  spoke  to  Jacob  at 
Beth-el,  the  " House  of  God,"  and  to 
Samuel  in  the  sanctuary  of  his  Lord. 
These  sons  of  God  were  ready  to  listen, 
and  therefore  they  heard.  The  waiting 
soul  to-day,  ministering  unto  the  Lord,  as 
Samuel  did,  will  hear  His  voice. 

Man  is  religious.     How  he  came  to  be, 

why  he  is  so,  are  questions  we  can  not 

definitely  answer.    The  fact  remains  that 

the  essential  element  of  man's  nature  is 

154 


THE  DIALOGUE  WITH  GOD. 

religious.  Religion  implies  dependence. 
As  a  religious  being  man  is  forever  striv- 
ing to  put  his  life  in  harmony  with  the 
power  on  which  he  is  dependent.  The  only 
means  of  approach  he  has  to  this  power 
is  that  of  petition.  In  ordinary  life  we 
are  continually  dependent  upon  others. 
When  we  stop  to  consider,  it  is  surprising 
how  little  we  can  do  without  petitioning 
our  friends  and  neighbors  for  assistance. 
We  may  do  this  openly  and  grossly  care- 
less of  the  proprieties,  and  be  classed  as 
mere  beggars.  But  even  when  we  have 
maintained  our  dignity  and  worth  we  re- 
main dependent  upon  others,  and  at  least 
tacitly  crave  their  help.  We  need  the 
friendship,  the  love,  the  sympathetic  com- 
panionship of  others.  This  we  silently  ask 
for.  Often  do  we  need  the  material  help, 
advice,  suggestion,  consolation,  encourage- 
ment which  we  can  get  only  from  our 
friends  and  loved  ones.  We  do  not  ask 
openly  and  supinely,  we  simply  pray  for  it 
155 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

in  our  actions  toward  those  whom  we  can 
trust. 

Herein  lies  the  difference  between  beg- 
ging and  prayer.  The  beggar  habitually 
asks,  not  intending  to  give  anything  in 
return;  the  prayerful  heart  is  ready  to 
give  even  more  than  it  can  receive,  and 
therefore  the  prayer  is  answered.  Shake- 
speare says : 

We  do  pray  for  mercy, 

And  that  same  prayer  doth  teach 

us  all  to  render 
The  deeds  of  mercy. 

This  is  the  true  definition  of  prayer.  Put- 
ting ourselves  in  thorough  sympathy  with 
our  friends,  subjecting  ourselves  to  them, 
entreating  them  for  their  help  because  we 
have  made  ourselves  worthy  of  it,  and  to 
share  with  others  even  more  than  our 
friends  can  give.  Praying  for  mercy,  but 
rendering  the  deeds  of  mercy.  This  is 
what  prayer  in  the  religious  sense  must 
be :  to  enter  into  spiritual  communion  with 
156 


THE  DIALOGUE  WITH  GOD. 

God,  to  be  His  minister,  His  servant,  ready 
to  listen  when  He  speaks.  Emerson  says : 
"You  need  not  speak  to  me,  I  need  not 
go  where  you  are,  that  you  should  exert 
magnetism  on  me.  Be  you  only  whole  and 
sufficient,  and  I  shall  feel  you  in  every  part 
of  my  life  and  fortune,  and  I  can  as  easily 
dodge  the  gravitation  of  the  globe  as  es- 
cape your  influence.' '  If  this  is  true  of 
man,  who  is  never  whole  and  sufficient,  but 
who  can  worthily  influence  us  even  al- 
though we  have  never  seen  nor  heard  him, 
how  much  more  is  this  true  of  God,  who 
is  perfectly  whole  and  sufficient  and  who 
for  evermore  has  made  Himself  felt  in 
every  part  of  the  life  and  fortune  of 
sainted  men  and  women  and  whom  we  can 
no  more  escape  than  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion. 

A   keenly    spiritualized    French   writer 

speaks  of  prayer  as  the  commerce  between 

God  and  man.    Commerce  means  exchange, 

exchange  of  goods,  merchandise,  property 

15? 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

of  any  kind.  Commerce  with  God  just  as 
truly  means  exchange ;  taking  the  God-life 
in  our  life  and  giving  ourselves  to  God. 
Our  commerce  with  God  is  a  relationship 
which  lasts  through  all  our  vicissitudes 
and  conditions,  both  of  life  and  death.  Un- 
like the  commerce  with  man,  where  our 
profit  may  be  small  and  uncertain,  our  com- 
merce with  God  means  nothing  but  gain 
to  ourselves  and  in  such  a  measure  as  to 
make  us  lack  nothing. 

In  his  holy  and  pure  moments  man 
hears  the  voice  of  God,  soothing  and 
reassuring.  In  his  sinful  moments  also 
he  hears  God's  voice.  The  difference 
is  that  in  the  one  case  he  welcomes 
God's  voice  and  is  glad  to  hear  it; 
His  Word  is  true  from  the  beginning,  a 
lamp  unto  his  feet  and  a  light  unto  his 
path.  In  the  other  case  he  would  rather 
not  hear  God  speak.  As  the  disobedient 
Israelites  said  to  Moses,  "  Speak  thou  with 
us  and  we  will  hear ;  but  let  not  God  speak 
158 


THE  DIALOGUE  WITH  GOD. 

with  us  lest  we  die ; '  *  so  would  man  whose 
sins  are  uncovered  rather  not  hear  the 
voice  of  the  Almighty.  But  God  speaks 
even  to  the  man  who  has  lost  the  right 
way  and  is  selling  his  soul  in  Vanity  Fair. 
Among  those  who  have  defective  hearing 
are  many  whose  eardrums  are  thickened, 
who  can  not  hear  ordinary  speech,  but, 
strange  to  say,  can  understand  what  is  said 
in  a  noisy  place.  The  unusual  concussion 
of  the  noises  makes  their  eardrums  vi- 
brate as  they  do  not  in  normal  conditions. 
There  are  men  who  are  deaf  to  the  or- 
dinary calls  of  life  and  duty,  who  will  re- 
spond only  to  the  thunders  of  threatening. 
So  God  speaks  to  them.  In  the  lightning's 
flash  and  the  thunder's  roar  He  appeared 
on  Sinai,  and  the  disobedient  children  of 
Israel  down  in  the  valley  heard  His  voice 
and  quailed  before  Him.  It  was  as  the 
judgment  day  for  them,  and  they  hastened 
to  hear  His  word. 

This  is  not  the  way  God  would  speak. 
159 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

He  would  have  His  children  hear  Him 
normally.  He  would  have  their  soul's  ears 
so  naturally  keyed  to  His  spiritual  utter- 
ance that  every  one  of  them  would  in- 
stinctively hear.  He  would  rather  not 
come  with  the  loudly  crashing  voice  of 
calamity,  forcing  His  children  to  hear  and 
turn  to  Him.  He  would  have  His  chil- 
dren ever  in  His  presence,  where  it  would 
be  as  natural  for  them  to  say,  "  Speak, 
Lord,  for  Thy  servant  heareth,"  as  it 
would  be  to  breathe  or  love.  His  children 
hear  His  voice,  He  calleth  His  own  by 
name,  for  they  know  His  voice. 

If  we  would  converse  with  God,  carry 
on  a  dialogue  with  Him,  we  must  put  away 
all  our  presuppositions  that  He  is  far  from 
us  and  not  to  be  known,  and  go  to  Him, 
dwell  in  His  courts,  as  the  child  Samuel 
did,  believing  that  He  is  in  our  very  souls. 
Willingness  to  hear  and  readiness  to  obey : 
these  are  the  two  conditions  on  which 
man's  relation  to  God  must  depend.  We 
160 


THE  DIALOGUE  WITH  GOD. 

worship  God  ignorantly  when  we  assume 
that  He  is  far  from  us  and  not  ready  to 
speak  with  us  face  to  face.  We  worship 
Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth  when  He  enters 
into  and  quickens  our  innermost  being, 
when  we  turn  to  Him  and  say,  "  Speak, 
Lord,  for  Thy  servant  heareth." 


161 


X. 

ON  HOLY  GROUND. 

The  Jews  were  in  the  habit  of  looking  for 
the  sacred  in  the  secular.  They  expected 
manifestations  of  God  anywhere  and  every- 
where. They  walked  softly  and  in  awe, 
as  though  they  were  in  the  immediate 
presence  of  the  Almighty.  No  wonder, 
then,  that  they  saw  and  appreciated  many 
of  the  deep  and  hidden  things  of  life  which 
people  who  come  after  neither  saw  nor 
sensed.  No  wonder  that  they  threw  such 
sanctity  around  the  name  of  God  that  it 
was  profanity  even  to  speak  His  name. 
No  wonder  that  they  saw  Him  in  the  burn- 
ing hedge  and  that  every  wayside  bush 
was  aflame  with  His  presence.  For  He  was 
near  to  them,  and  they  were  never  sur- 
prised when  He  seemed  to  come  to  them 
162 


ON  HOLY  GROUND. 

in  the  form  of  some  visitant  and  spoke 
audibly  with  them.  They  recognized  that 
He  was  good  and  they  looked  to  Him  for 
every  beneficence.  They  also  believed  that 
He  was  terrible,  and  in  their  primitive  way 
of  thinking,  expected  immediate  death  to 
follow  an  actual  vision  of  God.  So  He 
came  to  them  in  the  form  of  angels.  No 
one  could  see  the  face  of  God  and  live. 
Even  Isaiah  in  his  remarkable  experience 
in  the  temple  cried  that  he  was  undone 
because  his  eyes  had  seen  the  Lord. 

And  yet  this  aspect  of  terribleness  which 
the  children  of  Israel  predicated  of  God  is 
only  another  evidence  of  how  truly  and 
deeply  they  understood  Him,  and  how 
clearly  and  incisively  they  were  able  to 
express  their  views  of  Him.  As  we  think 
of  God  there  is  a  sense  in  which  He  does 
seem  terrible.  We  are  not  surprised  to 
hear  one  of  the  psalmists  saying  that  God 
is  terrible  in  His  doing  toward  the  children 
of  men,  and  that  "Men  should  praise  His 
163 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

terrible  name  and  say  unto  Him,  How  ter- 
rible Thou  art!"  It  was  a  fearful  thing  in 
their  eyes  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the 
living  God.  And  yet  this  expression  of 
fear  is  but  an  appreciation  of  the  sacred- 
ness  of  God  and  of  the  sanctity  of  His 
presence.  If  these  are  outraged,  how  else 
can  God  be  but  terrible?  And  if  He  is 
defied,  how  can  it  be  otherwise  than  that 
death  must  follow?  For  God  in  the  very 
essence  of  His  nature  is  unapproachable 
by  man.  The  sun  bathes  this  earth  in 
light  and  fills  it  with  life,  but  man  who 
persists  in  looking  into  the  face  of  the  £un 
is  in  danger  of  becoming  blind.  The  sun 
says  in  effect,  Shade  your  eyes  when  you 
would  look  at  me,  for  you  dare  not  look 
too  closely.  So  there  is  the  holy  of  holies 
into  which  even  man  in  the  high  priesthood 
of  his  best  self  dare  not  enter.  Draw  not 
nigh  hither,  and  even  where  thou  stand- 
est  remove  thy  shoes,  for  the  place  is  holy. 
God  calls  attention  to  the  sanctity  of 
164 


ON  HOLY  GKOUND. 

His  Being,  which  we  profane  only  at  our 
peril.  His  teaching  in  this  regard  we  can 
understand  if  we  will  but  open  our  eyes. 
We  have  been  breasting  ourselves  in  re- 
cent years  because  of  the  way  we  are  con- 
trolling natural  resources.  We  talk  in 
stock  phrases  about  harnessing  Niagara, 
and  chaining  the  lightning,  and  bridging 
the  ocean  by  steam.  Our  achievements  in 
inventive  skill  and  mechanical  progress 
read  like  fairy  tales.  We  are  swung  over 
the  sea  of  ice  that  eternally  covers  the 
slopes  of  the  Jungfrau,  for  example,  and 
believe,  although  our  eyes  are  not  yet  able 
to  see,  that  a  tunnel  will  soon  pierce  to  the 
heart  of  this  mountain  and  an  elevator  lift 
the  sightseer  to  the  very  tip  of  the  snow- 
clad  summit.  But  every  now  and  then,  as 
the  result  of  accident,  a  warning  comes 
to  draw  not  nigh  thither,  that  the  ground 
is  sacred  only  for  the  tread  of  the  Al- 
mighty. We  have  been  sailing  through  the 
air  lately  with  such  security  and  at  so 
165 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

rapid  a  pace  as  to  become  somewhat  in- 
different to  the  fact  that  only  an  intangible 
ether  and  not  the  solid  earth  is  immedi- 
ately below  us.  But  ever  and  anon  the 
warning  comes  terribly,  yes,  death-deal- 
ingly,  that  the  precincts  of  the  air  are  too 
sacred  as  yet  for  the  vulgar  trespass  of 
man. 

The  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado  may 
be  nothing  more  than  a  mere  name  to  many. 
But  there  is  nothing  like  unto  it  upon  the 
whole  known  earth.  The  psalmist  speaks 
of  the  tree  planted  by  the  river  of  water 
which  bringeth  forth  its  fruit  in  due  season. 
But  here  in  this  great  canyon,  which  is 
so  long  and  so  wide  and  so  deep  that  no 
description  can  give  even  a  faint  idea  of 
its  stupendousness  and  wholly  unlikeness 
to  any  other  wonderful  feature  of  nature, 
flows  a  river  which  baffles  every  approach 
of  man  and  refuses  every  aid  to  cultiva- 
tion. Instead  of  making  the  soil  about  it 
fertile,  it  draws  all  the  moisture  out  of  the 
166 


ON  HOLY  GKOUND. 

land  for  miles  around.  A  man  perishing 
with  thirst  may  stand  on  the  rim  of  the 
canyon  and  see  rivers  of  water  flowing 
past  him,  and  yet  die  for  any  drop  which 
he  could  procure  of  it.  Every  expedition 
which  has  been  made  to  follow  its  course 
and  explore  the  recesses  of  the  canyon 
has  resulted  in  death  and  dismay.  If  any- 
where in  nature  there  is  a  spot  where  the 
Almighty  says,  "Draw  not  nigh  hither,' ? 
it  is  here.  As  we  rode  down  more  than 
five  thousand  feet  over  the  steep  and  nar- 
row trails  seven  miles  to  the  river,  or  sat 
on  the  plateau  two  thousand  feet  sheer 
down  to  the  water's  edge,  or  stood  upon 
the  rim  of  the  canyon  and  looked  upon 
a  scene  which  man's  eyes  can  see  nowhere 
else,  I  seemed  to  be  hearing  again  and 
again  the  voice  saying,  "Take  thy  shoes 
from  off  thy  feet,  for  the  ground  on  which 
thou  standest  is  holy  ground."  God  was 
speaking,  and  man  would  be  deaf  indeed 
did  he  not  heed  His  voice.  He  is  terrible 
167 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

here.  But  in  this  very  terribleness  we  see 
the  beauty  of  His  nature  and  the  tender- 
ness of  His  love.  The  smith  can  strike 
a  powerful  blow  upon  the  anvil.  But  that 
arm  never  seems  so  strong  as  when  it  en- 
folds the  helpless  and  trusting  child.  As 
the  blow  is  struck  the  father  says,  in  effect, 
"Draw  not  nigh  hither,  this  is  no  place 
for  you;  here  I  must  show  my  power  and 
do  my  work."  So  the  arm  of  God  is  ter- 
rible as  it  lifts  up  the  mountains  and  hol- 
lows out  the  valleys.  But  all  the  strength 
that  goes  into  these  titanic  labors  is  pres- 
ent as  He  encircles  His  children  and  draws 
them  to  His  Father-heart.  Man  is  mighty 
in  his  powers  to  subdue  the  earth,  but 
God  is  mightier  in  creating  and  upholding 
it.  And  He  still  maintains  possession  over 
vast  domains  which  as  yet  are  too  holy  for 
man's  profane  foot.  He  holds  us  at  a 
proper  distance  and  keeps  us  humble  and 
reverent.  When  we  consider  His  heavens, 
therefore,  the  work  of  His  fingers;  the 
168 


ON  HOLY  GEOUND. 

moon  and  the  stars  which  He  has  ordained, 
"What  is  man,"  we  cry,  "that  Thou  art 
mindful  of  him,  and  the  son  of  man  that 
Thou  visitest  him?" 

As  in  nature,  so  in  the  deeper  things 
of  life  there  is  a  sanctity  we  must  observe. 
Here  are  those  intimate  personal  relations 
which  go  to  the  very  soul  of  our  being. 
Would  we  analyze  friendship?  Would  we 
ask  why  we  love  each  other?  If  we  would, 
and  insisted  upon  doing  so,  we  would  de- 
stroy the  fragrance  of  the  flower,  as  the 
botanist  might  do  in  pulling  it  to  pieces, 
but,  unlike  the  botanist,  we  would  know  no 
more  about  the  flower.  For  love  is  un- 
analyzable.  As  soon  as  we  draw  near  to 
scrutinize  it  we  hear  the  unmistakable 
voice,  "Draw  not  nigh  hither;  take  thy 
shoes  from  off  thy  feet,  for  the  ground  on 
which  thou  standest  is  holy."  Here  we 
are  in  the  domain  of  the  sacred.  If  we 
are  ruthless  and  push  our  quest,  we  pro- 
fane the  holiest  of  our  instincts  and  sus- 
169 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

ceptibilities  and  do  not  add  to  our  knowl- 
edge; if  we  are  reverent  and  wait  with 
bowed  heads  in  the  holy  place,  we  are  soon 
aware  of  a  pervading  presence  which  won- 
derfully glorifies  our  vision,  and  we  begin 
to  feel  on  understanding  terms  with  the 
unknowable.  We  become  known  even  as 
we  are  known,  but  so  sacred  is  our  knowl- 
edge that  we  do  not  attempt  to  express  it. 
We  revolt  at  the  thought  of  spiritual 
vivisection,  the  laying  bare  of  the  inmost 
feelings,  the  observing  of  the  heartbeat  of 
our  friends,  during  which  they  must  remain 
unconscious.  Because  this  is  so  unthink- 
able our  loving  Father  has  made  it  im- 
possible, and  in  this  has  revealed  to  us  the 
nature  of  His  own  tender  heart.  We  thank 
Him  that  He  has  dealt  so  kindly  with  us, 
that  He  has  given  us  faculties  to  feel  every 
shade  of  love  and  friendship  and  hold  them 
so  sacred  as  never  to  violate  or  trespass 
upon  their  godly  precincts.  A  striking  il- 
lustration of  this  fact  we  find  in  the  biog- 
170 


ON  HOLY  GKOUND. 

raphy  of  Alice  Freeman  Palmer.  Here 
was  a  relationship  of  admiration,  of  re- 
spect, of  love,  of  veneration  which  is  sacred 
ground  for  the  author  in  every  page  of  the 
book.  Coarse  and  profane  and  unfeeling 
would  the  narrative  have  been  had  the 
writer  attempted  to  analyze  the  life  of  this 
soul.  To  him  the  voice  did  not  need  to 
cry,  "Draw  not  nigh  hither;  put  thy  shoes 
from  off  thy  feet,  for  the  ground  on  which 
thou  standest  is  holy  ground."  A  wor- 
shiper at  the  sacred  shrine  of  love  and 
nobility,  he  derived  the  power  to  express 
the  life  of  this  notable  woman  in  such 
words  that  they  will  remain  a  classic  of 
penetration  and  discrimination  and  re- 
serve in  portraying  the  deepest  phase  of 
a  human  life. 

When  we  try  to  solve  life's  great  in- 
tellectual problems  we  hear  the  cry,  Draw 
not  nigh  hither.  We  can  not  climb  the 
highest  peak  of  the  intellect,  there  is  no 
aeroplane  capable  of  circling  through  the 
171 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

mental  atmosphere  at  will.  There  are 
forces  which  hold  the  mind  at  bay  just  as 
the  Colorado  Eiver  defies  man's  approach. 
We  are  on  sacred  ground  as  we  push  the 
mind's  quest.  For  the  intellect  is  limited, 
it  is  not  capable  of  coming  to  the  very  seat 
of  the  Almighty.  When  it  approaches  too 
near  the  voice  rings  out  unmistakably, 
"Draw  not  nigh  hither."  It  takes  us  a 
long  time,  sometimes,  to  learn  this  fact. 
As  we  think  we  can  annihilate  space  and 
break  down  all  the  barriers  that  hold  us 
from  controlling  natural  resources,  so  do 
we  think  we  can  disregard  the  holy  con- 
fines of  the  Most  High  and  read  His  mind. 
Carlyle  protested  against  the  effrontery  of 
certain  men  who,  he  said,  talked  as  though 
God  was  their  next-door  neighbor  and  they 
were  intimately  acquainted  with  all  His 
affairs.  It  is  well  for  us  to  heed  the  pro- 
test of  the  rugged  Scotch  philosopher,  for 
he  well  knew  how  sacred  were  the  pre- 
cincts of  the  Eternal  Mind  and  how  man 
172 


ON  HOLY  GROUND. 

profaned  the  Most  High  when  he  drew 
near.  Well  does  Tennyson,  in  his  "An- 
cient Sage,"  show  that  the  most  familiar 
of  truths  are  incapable  of  proof: 

Thou  canst  not  prove  the  nameless,  0,  my  son, 
Nor  canst  thou  prove  the  world  thou  movest  in. 
Thou  canst  not  prove  that  thou  art  body  alone 
Nor  canst  thou  prove  that  thou  art  spirit  alone 
Nor  canst  thou  prove  that  thou  art  both  in  one. 
Thou  canst  not  prove  that  thou  art  immortal,  no 
Nor  yet,  that  thou  art  mortal,  nay,  my  son, 
Thou  canst  not  prove  that  I  who  speak  with  thee 
Art  not  thyself  in  converse  with  thyself. 
For  nothing  worthy  proving  can  be  proven, 
Nor  yet  disproved,  wherefore  thou  be  wise, 
Cleave  ever  to  the  sunnier  side  of  doubt 
And  cling  to  faith  beyond  the  forms  of  faith. 

To  cling  to  Faith,  here  is  the  wisdom  of 
the  Ancient  Sage.  Job  throws  at  God  a 
dozen  questions,  and  God  sends  back  a 
hundred  riddles ;  and  Job  finds  peace.  For 
he  discovers  he  is  on  sacred  ground,  and 
God  tells  him  unmistakably  not  to  profane 
it.  And  his  life  becomes  a  poem  of  praise 
173 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

as  lie  clings  to  the  sunnier  side  of  doubt 
and  shows  "the  sanity  of  living  a  life  of 
trust  in  a  world  which  we  can  not  under- 
stand." For  our  "keenest  knowledge  can 
not  compass  a  tithe  of  the  wonders  that 
lie  at  [our]  feet."  And  yet  the  very  fact 
that  God  holds  us  from  Him  in  this  sense 
draws  us  very  near  to  Him.  It  is  the 
illustration  of  the  smithy  and  his  strong 
arm  over  again.  In  His  wisdom  God  is 
so  strong  that  He  outdistances  us  as  the 
wings  of  the  wind  outdistance  the  crawl  of 
the  snail,  but  in  love  He  is  so  tender  that 
He  careth  for  us.  "Like  a  father  pitieth 
his  children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that 
fear  Him,  for  He  knoweth  our  frame,  He 
remembereth  that  we  are  dust. ' ' 

So  we  leave  a  large  margin  for  imagina- 
tion which  we  call  faith,  and  thank  God  that 
there  are  some  things  which  He  permits 
us  to  believe  but  not  see.  Thus  we  are 
saved  from  pride  of  intellect  and  conceit 
of  mind,  and  can  combine  a  positive  faith 
174 


ON  HOLY  GKOUND. 

with  true  humility  such  as  Tennyson  ex- 
pressed when  he  said  of  the  Almighty,  "I 
hardly  dare  name  His  name,  but  take  away 
belief  in  the  self-conscious  personality  of 
God  and  you  take  away  the  backbone  of 
the  world." 

We  may  question  with  wand  of  science 

Explain,  deride,  discuss, 
But  only  in  meditation 

The  mystery  speaks  to  us. 

If  we  could  come  to  this  form  of  trust, 
if  we  could  thank  God  that  He  holds  the 
deepest  feelings  of  the  soul  life  too  sacred 
to  trifle  with,  if  we  could  recognize  His  do- 
minion and  appreciate  how  sacred  it  is, 
our  attitude  would  become  reverent,  our 
faith  positive,  our  trust  unshakable,  our 
spirit  to  obey  and  follow  Him  invincible. 


175 


XI. 

CHRISTIANITY  IN  THE  VEENACULAE. 

Sevebal  attempts  have  been  made  to  estab- 
lish a  universal  language.  They  all  have 
failed.  Very  early  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind, as  soon  as  man  began  to  multiply 
and  spread  over  the  earth,  was  there  a 
confusion  of  tongues.  One  branch  of  the 
human  race  being  separated  from  another 
soon  developed  a  language  peculiar  to  it- 
self. Although  we  can  find  in  the  roots  of 
all  languages  a  certain  similarity,  this 
sameness  is  not  so  definitely  marked  as 
to  give  us  a  clue  to  the  original,  or  at 
one  time  universal  language,  if  ever  such 
there  was.  Mankind,  as  far  back  as  we 
know  it,  always  was  separated  into  dif- 
ferent races  speaking  tongues  foreign  to 

each  other. 

176 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  VERNACULAR. 

And  yet  there  has  always  been  a  native 
or  universal  language  readily  understood 
by  all  peoples.  There  is  a  vernacular  be- 
longing to  the  speech  that  men  and  women 
everywhere  naturally  acquire,  which  they 
understand  and  are  capable  of  making 
others  understand. 

"We  read  this  language  first  in  nature — 

To  Him  who  in  the  love  of  Nature  holds 
Communion  with  her  visible  forms, 
She  speaks  a  various  language. 

And  this  language  is  always  understood. 
The  storm  is  a  storm,  whether  breaking 
in  full  fury  over  mountain  peak  or  sweep- 
ing its  flood  through  fertile  valley  or  pil- 
ing waves  in  towering  height  on  ocean's 
top.  The  Englishman  in  India,  or  the 
Moor  in  Switzerland,  or  the  Chinaman  in 
America  understands  nature  as  she  thus 
speaks,  for  nature  uses  a  native  and  not 
a  foreign  tongue.  The  river  rolling  on 
lazily  to  the  great  city  or  sea,  or  the  lake 

12  m 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

in  its  mountain  fastness  mirroring  cloud 
and  sky  and  foliage,  or  the  wide-spreading 
elm  before  tlie  smith's  door,  or  the  flower 
modestly  planted  in  a  discarded  tin  can 
or  broken  dish,  or  the  cattle  on  a  thousand 
hills,  or  the  myriad  stars  in  the  flaming 
heaven — all  speak  a  language  wondrously 
clear  to  the  devout  lover  of  nature.  And 
German,  Jap,  Italian,  Turk,  and  a  hun- 
dred other  foreign-born  stand  side  by  side 
looking  on  and  say,  "How  hear  we  every 
man  in  our  own  tongue  wherein  we  were 
born?" 

This  universal  language  is  also  spoken 
by  man  in  the  various  expressions  of  hu- 
man life.  Shakespeare  tells  the  whole 
story  in  his  characterization  of  ' '  Cresida : ' ' 

There  *s  language  in  her  eye,  her  cheek,  her  lip, 
Nay  her  foot  speaks ;  her  wanton  spirits  look  out 
At  every  joint  and  motion  of  her  body. 

Who  ever  needed  to  interpret  a  frown 
or  a  cry  of  pain;  a  tear  or  an  exclama- 

178 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  VERNACULAR. 

tion  of  joy;  a  smile  or  a  heart-piercing 
groan?  We  walk  the  crowded  and  con- 
gested streets  of  Cairo  or  Damascus,  where 
traffic  sweeps  on  in  a  rush  almost  to  anni- 
hilate one,  and  above  the  noise  hear  the 
sharp  cry  of  a  child  fallen  under  the  hoof 
of  a  horse,  and  we  understand  as  instantly 
what  that  child  has  said  as  we  should  did 
such  an  occurrence  take  place  in  our  own 
city,  in  front  of  our  very  door.  So  human 
nature  speaks  its  native  language  of  pain, 
anger,  distress,  excitement,  flippancy,  fri- 
volity, calm,  seriousness,  discrimination, 
gladness,  exhilaration,  love.  And  the  for- 
eign-born look  on  and  say,  "How  hear  we 
every  man  in  our  own  language  wherein 
we  were  born?" 

This  universal  language  of  nature  and 
human  life  furthermore  has  had  a  uni- 
versal interpretation  which  the  devout  soul 
can  readily  understand.  The  artist  comes 
to  nature  in  her  manifold  moods  and  takes 
her  very  soul  to  put  on  canvas,  and  we 
179 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

move  slowly  through  the  great  galleries, 
forgetting  that  we  are  in  a  building  made 
with  human  hands,  heedless  of  the  conver- 
sation or  the  crowd  that  may  be  about 
us,  feeling  only  that  we  are  in  God's 
great  out-of-doors,  and  fields  and  flowers, 
meadow  and  mountain,  lake  and  river  are 
speaking  to  us,  wooing  our  fervent  love. 
Whether  the  artist  was  an  Italian  or  a 
Pole,  a  Eussian  or  a  Swede,  or  whether 
the  scene  was  on  the  burning  sands  of 
the  desert  or  the  cool  shades  of  a  forest 
interior,  whether  a  mountain  in  Asia  or 
a  river  in  America  or  a  wide-spreading 
field  in  Tuscany  or  a  view  on  the  Thames, 
we  instinctively  understand,  and  with  other 
appreciative  souls,  who  also  are  bathing 
their  aBsthetic  natures  in  the  masterpieces 
of  the  landscape  painter's  art,  say,  "How 
hear  we  all  in  the  language  in  which  we 
were  born?" 

Or  the  artist  goes  to  human  life  and 
draws  therefrom  his  inspiration,  and  makes 
180 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  VERNACULAR. 

the  canvas  or  marble  vocal  with  all  the 
manifold  expressions  of  human  nature. 
We  stand  before  Leonardo  da  Vinci's 
"Mona  Lisa"  and  need  not  be  told  that 
so  wonderfully  has  the  artist  depicted  this 
woman  in  her  gentle  grace  and  charm  that 
she  seems  to  have  stepped  out  of  life  and 
is  ready  to  engage  us  in  winsome  and 
captivating  converse.  We  look  at  Rem- 
brandt's Samson  demanding  his  wife  from 
his  father-in-law  when  the  latter  in  Sam- 
son's absence  had  given  her  to  another 
man.  As  we  see  Samson  storming  with- 
out, with  raised  fist  and  angry  countenance, 
and  his  father-in-law  fearsomely  looking 
from  the  window  within,  we  need  not  be 
told  that  trouble  is  brewing,  even  though 
we  may  not  know  what  the  picture  is  sup- 
posed to  represent.  Strolling  through  the 
royal  galleries  in  Berlin,  we  stop  suddenly 
arrested  before  a  marble  statue.  A  woman 
reclines  in  the  roadside  against  a  mile- 
stone, a  little  bundle  of  clothing  beside 
181 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

her,  a  child  on  her  bosom  peacefully  sleep- 
ing. As  we  look  at  the  distressed  face 
of  the  mother,  thoroughly  exhausted,  too 
much  so  to  sleep  calmly,  we  need  not 
be  told  that  she  came  a  long  way  and  has 
a  long  way  to  go,  for  the  very  stone  speaks. 
How  we  yearn  to  assist  her  and  make  her 
lot  a  more  easy  one.  Whether  we  pass 
that  figure  once  or  a  dozen  times,  the 
same  feeling  comes  over  us.  That  marble 
speaks,  it  speaks  a  universal  language, 
and  we  understand.  So  the  artist  catches 
all  the  delicate  shades  of  human  expres- 
sion and  puts  them  in  stone  or  in  a  frame, 
and  appreciative  souls  look  on  and  under- 
stand each  in  his  own  tongue. 

As  the  artist,  so  also  does  the  musician 
interpret  nature  and  human  life  in  uni- 
versal speech.  There  is  a  language  here. 
Music  hath  charms  and  throws  her  spell 
over  all  mankind.  We  sit  and  listen  to 
the  oratorio  or  the  symphony,  the  violinist 
or  the  singer,  and  a  flow  of  feeling  comes 
182 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  VERNACULAR. 

rushing  over  us,  memories  of  scenes  and 
faces  crowd  upon  us,  we  are  living  in  the 
past,  the  years  have  thrown  a  halo  over 
our  childhood  and  youth  and  we  live  them 
again  in  golden  dreams.  Or  we  are 
projected  into  the  future.  "We  look  upon 
that  which  might  be,  the  years  expand  be- 
fore us,  we  walk  as  in  marble  halls,  amid 
fragrant  odors  and  past  cooling  fountains. 
We  forget  the  present,  the  daily  toils  and 
cares,  the  disappointments,  the  circum- 
scribed outlooks.  For  at  that  moment  the 
voice  of  the  Eternal  is  speaking  and  we  are 
lost  in  the  Great  Soul  of  which  we  are  a 
part  and  which  forever  calls  us.  Music 
speaks  its  universal  language  and  makes 
the  deepest  depths  of  man's  being  re- 
sponsive. We  listen  and  exclaim,  "How 
hear  we  every  man  in  our  own  tongue  in 
which  we  were  born?" 

Now,  it  needs  no  word  to  say  that  this 
universal  language  is  the  soul-language; 
the  soul  of  the  Eternal  revealing  itself  to 
183 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

the  soul  of  man ;  the  soul  of  man  responsive 
to  the  revelation.  Why  did  the  believers 
in  Jesus  at  Pentecost  understand  each 
other  ?  There  are  two  sentences  which  give 
us  a  clue  to  the  whole  situation.  The  one 
reads,  "And  there  were  dwelling  at  Jeru- 
salem Jews,  devout  men  out  of  every 
nation  under  the  sun."  Devout  Jews  who 
had  come  from  all  parts  of  the  globe,  who 
had  heard  of  Jesus,  and  who  now  under- 
stood clearly  concerning  Him  as  Peter  and 
the  other  disciples  spoke  of  Him.  And 
the  other  sentence  reads,  "  Others  mocking 
said,  these  men  are  full  of  new  wine."  On 
one  side  devout  men  who  heard  and  be- 
lieved; on  the  other,  skeptics  who  heard 
and  mocked.  To  a  blind  man  the  landscape, 
the  picture,  the  smile  mean  little;  to  the 
deaf  man  the  cry,  the  laugh,  the  song, 
the  symphony  mean  little;  to  the  brutal 
and  heartless  the  mute  appeal  for  help 
goes  unheeded.  To  understand  the  Soul 
of  the  universe  man  must  bring  to  it  a  soul 
184 


CHEISTIANITY  IN  VERNACULAR. 

full  charged  with  sympathetic  apprecia- 
tion; to  be  moved  by  the  soul  of  religion, 
man  must  bring  his  own  soul  into  harmony 
therewith.  For  soul  impressions  can  be 
made  only  upon  an  impressible  soul.  We 
know  how  men  feel  in  Timbuctoo  or  in  the 
South  Sea  Islands  because  we  know  how 
we  feel  wherever  we  are.  One  soul  is  al- 
ways in  telegraphic  communication  with 
other  souls.  This  is  the  very  heart  of  re- 
ligion, and  especially  Christianity.  Jesus 
needed  not  to  be  told  what  was  in  the  mind 
of  any  man,  for  He  already  knew  men 
thoroughly.  While  we  can  not  presume  to 
have  such  a  knowledge,  we  can  understand 
the  vernacular  of  Christianity  wherever 
spoken,  for  it  is  everywhere  the  same. 
We  are  told  a  great  preacher  years  ago 
named  Vincent  Ferrer,  preaching  in  Span- 
ish, was  understood  by  English,  Flemish, 
French,  and  Italian  hearers.  While  this 
may  seem  questionable  to  us  who  remain 
on  the  prosaic  plane  of  every-day  experi- 
185 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

ence,  yet  it  is  not  at  all  unreasonable,  and 
when  properly  understood  is  a  verifiable 
fact.  Professor  Peabody,  over  his  own 
name  in  the  Boston  Transcript  some  years 
ago,  wrote  of  Professor  Kuehnemann,  who 
was  lecturing  in  German  at  Harvard,  that 
the  captivating  scholar  was  so  full  of  his 
subject  and  had  such  a  command  of  his 
own  language  that  those  little  acquainted 
with  German  could  realize  what  he  was 
saying  without  understanding  his  words. 
This  is  merely  soul  speaking  to  soul  in  the 
soul's  vernacular.  How  did  the  Pilgrims 
make  themselves  understood  at  first  by  the 
Indians?  This  is  a  question  in  early 
Colonial  history  that  we  sometimes  pass 
over  without  due  thought,  when  it  is  full 
of  interest.  How  did  the  early  mission- 
aries make  themselves  understood  by  the 
cannibal  natives,  as  these  men  full  of  the 
Soul  of  Christ  first  set  out  to  convert  the 
world?  Here  again  is  a  law  of  psychic 
phenomena  with  universal  application.  A 
186 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  VERNACULAR. 

soul  charged  with  the  love  of  Christ  some- 
how makes  other  sympathetic  souls  under- 
stand, and  soon  even  the  unsympathetic  are 
impressed. 

A  few  years  ago  I  sat  in  a  Protestant 
mission  house  in  Rome  and  listened  to  a 
sermon  in  Italian.  I  understood  hardly 
any  of  the  language,  but  I  comprehended 
the  whole  thought  of  the  speaker.  His 
eye,  his  face,  his  hand,  his  whole  body 
was  speaking,  and  the  sympathetic  re- 
sponse in  his  hearers,  their  close  atten- 
tion, their  look  and  demeanor  when  he 
pressed  his  truth  home,  told  a  sympathetic 
foreigner  only  too  well  that  the  wonder- 
ful gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  was  charming 
speaker  and  spoken-to  alike,  and  the  very 
air  was  charged  with  the  good  news. 

A  few  years  later  I  stood  in  the  Amer- 
ican mission  school  in  the  city  of  Tarsus, 
the  birthplace  of  Saint  Paul;  I  had  made 
a  few  remarks  to  the  students  through  an 
interpreter,  and  then  two  or  three  of  the 
187 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

older  young  men  arose  to  reply.  They 
spoke  Turkish.  I  understood  not  a  word. 
But  I  needed  not  the  office  of  an  inter- 
preter to  tell  me  what  they  were  saying. 
They  had  come  out  of  homes  in  the  far 
inland  Asia  Minor.  They  had  grown  to 
manhood  without  even  the  rudiments  of 
learning.  They  were  quick  with  a  love  of 
the  Christ  and  for  the  generous  American 
spirit  that  would  send  money  and  conse- 
crated men  and  women  to  teach  and  train 
them.  The  light  of  their  eyes,  the  move- 
ment of  their  lips,  the  quivering  of  their 
whole  bodies  spoke  more  plainly  to  me  than 
their  words  could.  I  understood,  because 
I  was  carried  away  with  sympathy  for  that 
whole  movement.  For  the  moment,  at 
least,  my  soul  was  in  touch  with  the  great 
soul  of  the  universe  which  everywhere  ex- 
presses itself  in  just  that  way,  the  lifting 
of  mankind  from  its  low  estate  and  sending 
it  on  wings  of  love  to  its  higher  estate. 
Our  souls  are  a  part  of  the  Infinite  Soul, 
188 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  VERNACULAR 

as  the  wave  is  a  part  of  the  ocean.  Lift 
that  wave  out,  set  it  apart  from  its  real 
element,  and  it  soon  evaporates.  Leave  it 
where  it  belongs  to  perform  its  real  task 
and,  with  a  million  other  waves  eternally- 
held  in  the  hollow  of  ocean's  hand,  it  will 
carry  the  commerce  and  human  freight  of 
the  world.  So  the  soul  in  tune  with  the 
Infinite  Soul  will  speak  the  soul's  vernac- 
ular and  make  itself  understood  wherever 
a  human  soul  exists.  A  soul  submerged  in 
the  Soul  of  Christ  will  speak  the  Christian 
vernacular  and  men  everywhere  will  un- 
derstand. We  were  all  born  in  the  Chris- 
tian vernacular.  Do  we  speak  this  lan- 
guage so  that  all  can  understand?  Or  is 
our  speech  foreign  and  only  confusion  to 
those  with  whom  we  associate? 


189 


XII. 

THE  VALLEY  BETWEEN. 

We  understand  at  once  that  where  two 
mountains  face  each  other  there  is  a  valley 
between.  Yet  we  read  that  at  one  time 
"the  Philistines  stood  on  a  mountain  on 
the  one  side  and  Israel  stood  on  a  moun- 
tain on  the  other  side  and  there  was  a 
valley  between  them/'  It  seems  useless  to 
call  attention  to  this  valley.  To  the  writer, 
however,  it  was  a  significant  fact.  So  often 
was  there  a  valley  between  His  people  and 
their  sworn  enemy  that  unconsciously  He 
lays  strong  emphasis  upon  the  valley.  For 
had  the  valley  on  different  occasions  not 
been  there  Israel  could  never  have  main- 
tained herself.  Long  ago  would  she  have 
been  ground  to  dust. 

The  valley  here  stands  as  an  interposi- 
190 


THE  VALLEY  BETWEEN. 

tion  of  Providence  between  Israel  and  her 
enemy.  This  valley-between  was  a  fact  of 
great  importance  in  the  life  of  Israel;  it 
is  a  fact  of  gravest  conseqnence  in  the  lives 
of  most  men  and  women.  It  was  a  natural 
barrier  for  Israel  keeping  Philistia  at  bay ; 
so  is  it  in  our  lives,  keeping  Israel,  the 
good  in  us,  from  Philistia,  the  bad.  Were 
it  not  for  this  valley  the  Philistines  would 
soon  be  upon  us. 

Now,  a  valley  is  a  depression.  It  is  not 
a  mountain-top,  but  always  overshadowed 
by  the  heights.  And  the  valley  in  Pales- 
tine was  not  broad  and  fertile,  watered  by 
a  river,  like  most  of  our  valleys.  It  was 
narrow  and  usually  rocky  and  barren.  It 
became  typical  of  the  undesirable.  In  figu- 
rative speech  it  was  designated  as  the  pass 
leading  to  misfortune  or  grief  or  utter 
desolation.  Yea,  though  I  walk  through 
the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  says 
the  psalmist.  Isaiah  speaks  of  the  deso- 
late valleys  in  the  same  connection  with 
191 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

holes  in  the  rocks  and  thorns.  Jeremiah 
pictures  the  valley  of  dead  bodies,  and 
Ezekiel  preaches  on  the  valley  of  dry 
bones.  Just  outside  of  Jerusalem  the 
valley  of  Hinnom,  even  unto  Jesus '  day, 
was  the  synonym  for  the  place  where  the 
worm  never  dies  and  the  fire  is  never 
quenched. 

A  valley  in  Old  Testament  lands  was  not 
a  very  desirable  place ;  figuratively  speak- 
ing, it  was  not  a  depression  which  a  man 
would  want  in  his  life.  Yet  the  valley- 
between  saved  Israel  from  the  Philistines. 
So  we  have  valleys  in  our  lives;  valleys 
not  pleasant  and  fertile,  but  barren  and 
rocky ;  valleys  we  should  rather  have  taken 
out  of  our  lives  or  filled  up.  Yet  these 
valleys  save  us  from  our  worst  selves. 

There  is  the  valley  of  poverty.  In  this 
valley  we  may  find  the  lilies  growing,  as 
many  a  poor  man  has  cultivated  the  un- 
yielding soil  of  his  poverty  and  made  it 
blooming  and  fragrant.  But  no  one  will 
192 


THE  VALLEY  BETWEEN. 

claim  that  to  be  poor  is  desirable.  Have 
we  ever  considered,  however,  how  much 
worse  off  than  in  their  poverty  many  men 
would  be  did  they  control  riches?  Poverty 
to  them  is  the  valley  that  holds  their  worst 
enemies  at  bay.  Sudden  wealth  will  ruin 
almost  any  man.  Even  one  who  adds  to 
his  world's  goods  gradually  will  increase 
his  desires  and  demands  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  Simple  tasks  that  kept  in  rhythm 
with  humble  toil  and  homely  surroundings 
are  apt  to  be  smothered  in  patrician  long- 
ings as  wealth  increases.  There  is  grave 
danger  that  the  protecting  valley  will  be 
filled  up  and  an  even  and  easy  way  made 
for  the  Philistine  to  cross  over.  One  of 
the  most  pathetic  scenes  in  the  Bible  is 
Samson  the  strong,  the  sunny  and  light- 
hearted,  in  the  iron  grasp  of  the  Philis- 
tines. They  could  never  have  come  upon 
him  had  he  allowed  the  valley,  which  was 
a  natural  configuration  between  his  native 
place  and  theirs,  to  remain.  Many  a  home 
13  193 


THE  ASSUKANCE  OF  FAITH. 

has  been  disrupted,  many  a  relationship  of 
love  and  confidence  and  honor  destroyed, 
many  a  family  altar  thrown  down  or  al- 
lowed to  fall  as  riches  have  increased  and 
the  almost  inevitable  social  ambition  has 
arisen.  We  remember  the  incident  of  a 
husband  grown  immensely  wealthy,  putting 
the  wife  of  his  youth  away,  the  wife  of  his 
early  toils  and  struggles,  the  wife  who 
helped  him  lay  the  foundations  of  his  for- 
tune, putting  her  away  to  follow  the  butter- 
fly of  a  cheapened  stage,  and  the  social 
influence  that  she  could  perhaps  bring  him. 
"Whatever  he  may  have  thought  of  himself, 
the  sharpened  sense  of  decency  looked 
upon  him  as  dishonored  and  defeated. 
Better  the  valley  of  poverty  for  him  than 
the  plateau  of  wealth  over  which  his  be- 
setting sins  had  such  easy  march. 

When  we  speak  of  poverty  we  use  the 

word  in  its  relative  sense.    Many  a  man 

who  has  sufficient  income  and  estate  to  give 

his  family  the  comforts  of  a  home  and  the 

194 


THE  VALLEY  BETWEEN. 

necessary  advantages  in  life  may  regard 
himself  as  a  poor  man  in  relation  to  those 
who  have  hundreds  of  thousands  and  mil- 
lions. But  blessed  is  that  man  if  he  looks 
upon  his  condition  as  the  valley-between, 
holding  the  enemies  of  his  best  self  at  bay. 
Many  of  us  would  be  no  better  than  the 
immensely  wealthy  whom  we  decry  were 
it  not  for  the  valley  lying  between  our 
•circumscribed  conditions  and  their  unlim- 
ited opportunity.  The  good  we  sometimes 
manifest  is  not  always  the  result  of  virtue. 
It  may  be  due  to  the  valley  divinely  inter- 
posed between  our  unrestrained  desires 
and  their  evil  consequences.  Moderate  cir- 
cumstances, although  at  times  they  may 
be  depressing,  ought  to  give  us  no  occa- 
sion for  discouragement.  As  we  come  fully 
to  understand  ourselves,  we  shall  find  that 
God  in  withholding  possessions  from  us 
has  given  competent  proof  that  He  is  with 
us. 
Again,  our  inability  to  command  certain 
195 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

things,  entailing  the  necessity  to  work  hard 
for  what  we  get,  must  be  looked  upon  as 
the  friendly  valley  saving  us  from  defeat. 
Many  a  young  man  of  great  talents  has 
allowed  these  to  go  undeveloped  because 
there  was  no  necessity  for  him  to  ask  where 
the  next  bite  to  eat  was  coming  from.  As 
it  is  hard  for  a  rich  man  to  go  through 
the  eye  of  a  needle,  so  is  it  hard  for  a  tal- 
ented man  to  go  through  the  narrowing 
process  of  development  if  he  is  relieved 
from  the  strain  of  self-support.  The  youth 
who  is  forced  to  work  his  way  through 
college,  instead  of  being  dissatisfied  or  de- 
pressed, ought  to  take  courage  and  look 
upon  the  toil  he  is  put  to  as  the  friendly 
valley  that  is  saving  him  from  laziness  or 
indifference,  perhaps ;  surely  from  regard- 
ing success  in  life  as  assured  where  great 
talent  are  in  evidence.  And  in  after  life, 
when  face  to  face  with  the  demands  of  his 
profession,  blessed  is  he  if  forced  to  earn 
his  own  living.  For  here  is  the  valley 
196 


THE  VALLEY  BETWEEN. 

that  shall  save  him  from  idleness  and  the 
squandering  of  his  mental  and  spiritual 
gifts. 

There  is  also  the  valley  of  misfortune. 
We  look  upon  misfortune  with  a  coldly 
fixed  stare.  We  see  in  it  nothing  but  an 
intense,  a  bitter  fact.  It  has  only  a  re- 
pelling look.  Yet  misfortune  is  to  be 
judged  entirely  from  a  different  point  of 
view.  It  was  a  great  misfortune  for  the 
man  in  Scripture  to  be  blind  or  a  par- 
alytic. This  misfortune  to  Jesus,  however, 
was  a  point  of  contact,  giving  Him  an  op- 
portunity to  save  such  a  man  from  a  real 
calamity:  a  sin-diseased  soul.  To  return 
to  our  figure,  misfortune,  if  truly  appre- 
ciated, may  be  the  knowledge  suddenly 
brought  home  to  us  that  the  Philistines 
are  encamped  yonder  on  the  heights  and 
that  only  a  valley  lies  between  us  and 
annihilation.  Now,  I  should  not  want  to 
be  understood  as  suggesting  an  easily  in- 
terpreted philosophy  of  misfortune,  or  lead 
197 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

to  the  inference  that  misfortune  comes  as  a 
punishment,  and  that  they  who  do  not  have 
misfortunes  are  thus  freed  because  they 
merit  only  Heaven's  smile.  I  am  merely 
suggesting  that  misfortune  may  come  to 
us  in  the  guise  of  a  blessing,  that  although 
it  may  seem  to  be  a  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death:  death  to  material  prosperity  or 
comfort,  it  may  be  a  valley  of  the  bright- 
ness of  life :  life  for  the  soul,  life  that  gives 
opportunity  for  discovering  and  develop- 
ing spiritual  resources.  If  there  were  never 
a  valley  of  misfortune  for  us,  we  should 
be  proud  and  high-minded.  If  we  were 
never  taken  down  from  our  exalted  state 
by  easy  approaches,  our  fall  would  be  sud- 
den and  into  the  depths.  Continued  mis- 
fortune may  be  a  series  of  blessings,  plac- 
ing the  valley  between  us  and  a  worse  fate. 
Circumscribed  power,  or  limited  oppor- 
tunity to  exercise  power,  is  another  valley 
of  salvation  in  the  life  of  many  a  man. 
We  know  how  jealous  a  man  is  of  the 
198 


THE  VALLEY  BETWEEN. 

power  he  possesses,  how  arbitrarily  and 
excessively  he  is  apt  to  use  it,  and  how 
arrogant  he  is  in  danger  of  becoming. 
" There  is  no  stronger  test  of  a  man's  real 
character,"  said  Plutarch,  "than  power 
and  authority,  exciting  as  they  do  every 
passion,  and  discovering  every  latent 
vice."  "The  last  thing  we  should  endow 
a  man  with  is  power,"  said  Lincoln,  "be- 
cause it  is  the  last  thing  he  is  willing  to 
lay  down."  Our  lives  are  laid  out  provi- 
dentially, therefore,  when  the  valleys  of 
necessary  restraint  are  marked.  Unbridled 
power  may  continue  for  the  night,  but 
sober  judgment  comes  with  the  morning. 
Heads  of  kings  and  princes  have  been  cut 
off  as  they  have  taken  the  bit  in  their 
mouths.  A  rule  or  ruin  regime  fails  in 
both  its  designs  and  recoils  upon  the  one 
who  would  establish  it.  For  the  aroused 
sense  of  what  is  just  and  right  and  best 
will  sooner  or  later  curb  the  rule  and  pre- 
vent the  ruin.  To  save  man  from  the  exer- 
199 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

cise  of  unlimited  power  the  valleys  of  re- 
straint are  interposed.  If  men  could  be 
as  strong  and  untrammeled  in  the  control 
of  destiny  or  of  hidden  resources  as  they 
desire  to  be,  there  would  be  neither  justice 
nor  judgment,  toleration  nor  restraint. 
Even  a  little  power  is  enough  to  turn  a 
man's  head.  As  we  make  a  practical  and 
personal  application  of  this  fact,  we  begin 
to  see  what  bearing  it  has  upon  our  lives. 
Were  it  not  for  the  valley-between,  the 
unbridled  Philistines  of  envy,  dislike,  ani- 
mosity would  take  hold  of  us.  We  should 
crush  those  whom  we  do  not  favor  or  who 
do  not  favor  us  in  the  crucible  of  our 
power. 

In  this  connection  we  might  speak  of 
knowledge  as  power.  This  power  man  is 
ever  more  trying  to  possess.  But  a  certain 
danger  lurks  in  unlimited  knowledge. 
There  was  one  tree  in  the  Garden  the  fruit 
of  which  Adam  and  Eve  were  not  to  eat. 
Speech  was  confounded  when  the  children 
200 


THE  VALLEY  BETWEEN. 

of  Israel  undertook  to  build  a  tower  high 
enough  to  reach  the  heavens  and  learn  its 
secrets.  There  are  some  things,  evidently, 
man  is  never  to  know,  and  many  others 
which  he  must  learn  only  gradually.  In 
this  sense  the  silences  of  God  are  like  so 
many  valleys  which  He  interposes  between 
the  power  we  not  only  could  but  would  ex- 
ercise were  we  wise.  There  is  much  that 
the  Almighty  wants  us  to  accept  by  faith 
and  not  by  sight,  to  believe  although  we 
do  not  see.  For  knowledge  which  comes 
through  faith  brings  the  kind  of  joy  a  man 
has  when  he  sees  his  ships  which  he  sent 
across  the  waters  on  a  venture  return  full 
of  rich  cargo.  Of  course  all  knowledge  is 
based  on  faith,  but  because  we  can  see  so 
many  things  with  the  naked  eye,  we  have 
a  faculty  of  declaring  that  only  the  things 
thus  seen  are  real.  To  save  us  from  crush- 
ing defeat  by  materialistic  forces  on  the 
sense  plane  a  valley  is  interposed  until  we 
become  intellectually  acquainted  with  our- 
201 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

selves.  A  knowledge  not  based  on  faith 
would  be  equal  to  infinite  knowledge  and 
would  be  a  weapon  in  man's  hands  where- 
with he  would  do  himself  grave  injury.  As 
we  frankly  profess  ignorance  of  things  too 
high  and  mighty  for  us  we  keep  the  Philis- 
tines in  our  nature  at  bay. 

The  lesson  of  the  valley-between  can  be 
carried  much  further  and  be  more  variedly 
illustrated.  Its  truth  is  clear.  The  valleys 
of  God  are  interposed  between  our  best 
and  our  worst  selves  to  keep  our  enemies 
from  rushing  upon  us.  In  poverty  or  mod- 
erate circumstances  or  misfortune  or  cir- 
cumscribed fields  of  action  or  limited  op- 
portunities we  can  read  the  lesson  of  the 
valley-between  and  thank  God  that  He 
knows  us  so  well  and  cares  for  us  so  wisely. 
But  there  is  a  closing  word  that  needs  to 
be  said.  The  valley-between  kept  the 
Philistines  from  moving  upon  Israel  at 
once.  And  this  suggests  that  the  valley 
also  gave  the  Israelites  time  to  prepare  to 
202 


THE  VALLEY  BETWEEN, 

meet  the  enemy.  Let  us  note  what  hap- 
pened. The  Philistines,  in  the  form  of 
the  giant  Goliath,  came  swaggering  and 
threatening  into  the  valley  to  challenge 
Israel.  A  champion  comes  forth  to  accept 
the  challenge.  He  is  but  a  lad,  and  the 
Israelites  themselves  are  surprised  at  his 
audacity.  Small  and  frail  he  surely  is  in 
comparison  with  the  giant.  Furthermore, 
he  would  fight  with  no  weapon  of  recog- 
nized warfare.  The  king,  in  consternation, 
can  not  leave  him  to  go  to  certain  death. 
He  must  have  the  king's  armor  and  the 
king's  sword.  But  when  these  are  put  on 
him,  and  he  has  rattled  around  in  them,  the 
king  sees  they  are  not  fit  for  him.  So, 
with  the  only  weapons  to  which  he  was 
used,  unusual  though  these  were,  and  act- 
ing only  as  himself,  David  goes  down  into 
the  valley.  Soon  he  stands  on  the  huge 
hulk  of  the  lifeless  enemy.  Let  us  not 
hesitate  to  use  the  truth  conveyed  in  this 
story  at  its  full  face  value.  As  we  are 
203 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

fighting  the  foe  we  need  go  equipped  only 
in  our  natural  strength  and  with  weapons 
lying  ready  to  hand.  We  can  take  them 
from  God's  clear  stream  of  truth,  and  hurl 
them  unerringly  with  the  arm  of  godly 
purpose  He  has  given  us.  And  we  need 
never  be  disturbed  when  those  who  are 
used  to  a  king's  armor  and  sword  laugh 
at  our  pebbles  and  sling.  The  Jews  put 
a  reed  into  Jesus '  hand  as  a  mocking  sign 
of  His  scepter.  With  it  He  has  conquered 
the  world  and  bids  us  prepare  for  our  own 
struggle  in  the  same  spirit  and  with  the 
same  strength. 


204 


xm. 

LIFE'S  COUNTEKPOISE. 

Jesus  was  on  His  way  to  Galilee  from 
Jerusalem  with  His  disciples.  All  morn- 
ing they  had  been  climbing  a  steep  and 
rocky  hill,  over  the  brow  of  which  they 
had  just  come  down  to  Jacob's  Well. 
Wearied,  thirsty  and  hungry,  Jesus  rests 
at  the  well  while  His  disciples  go  to  a 
nearby  village,  a  little  off  from  the  road 
they  were  traveling,  to  fetch  some  food. 
During  their  absence  a  woman  from  the 
village  comes  to  draw  water.  At  the  very 
sight  of  her  Jesus  is  changed  from  a  tired 
Traveler  into  a  ministering  Savior.  There 
is  a  counteracting  force  in  the  very  nature 
of  His  being  that  causes  Him  to  forget  His 
material  wants  and  leads  Him  to  supply 
a  spiritual  need.  As  in  mechanics  a  weight 
is  used  to  balance  the  vibrating  parts  of 
205 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

machinery  upon  their  axis  so  as  to  cause 
them  to  turn  freely  and  to  require  little 
power  to  set  them  in  motion,  so  was  there 
such  a  weight  or  counterpoise  in  the  being 
of  Jesus  that  balanced  the  vibrating  ele- 
ments of  life  upon  that  central  axis  of  love 
and  service,  which  made  all  His  forces  re- 
spond to  the  slightest  indication  of  a  hu- 
man need  and  caused  them  to  turn  freely 
to  its  amelioration.  This  counterpoise  in 
Jesus'  nature  kept  in  proper  balance  the 
material  and  the  spiritual  and  enabled  Him 
without  neglecting  the  one  to  give  the  other 
its  sufficient  emphasis. 

His  disciples  could  not  understand  this. 
Coming  from  the  village,  more  tired  than 
when  they  left  their  Master,  they  are  sur- 
prised to  see  Him  engaged  in  conversation 
with  a  woman.  They  wait  patiently  until 
the  conversation  is  finished,  and  then  urge 
upon  Him  their  food.  Jesus  sat  down  and 
ate  with  them.  But  seeing  their  anxious 
concern  for  His  physical  welfare  as  well 
206 


LIFE'S  COUNTEKPOISE. 

as  their  own,  and  realizing  how  little  they 
comprehended  the  sustaining  power  of  the 
spiritual  life,  He  says  to  them  with  a 
grandeur  and  dignity  that  lift  His  words 
quite  out  of  the  ordinary,  "I  have  meat 
to  eat  that  ye  know  not  of."  He  had 
entered  that  lofty  sphere  of  sympathy  and 
service  whence  He  drew  strength  for  the 
supply  of  all  who  came  to  Him  as  well  as 
for  Himself.  His  disciples  were  still  on 
the  plain  of  the  earthy,  anxious  to  minister 
to  their  material  needs.  They  had  not  dis- 
covered this  counterpoise  in  Jesus '  nature. 
There  was  something  in  His  life  that  made 
Him  transcendent  above  every  other  life 
they  knew,  but  His  secret  they  had  not 
discerned.  Jesus  was  in  the  world,  that 
they  knew;  and  that  He  was  not  of  the 
world,  they  instinctively  felt.  Further 
than  this,  however,  they  did  not  penetrate 
into  Jesus'  character.  Jesus  alone  in  the 
consciousness  of  His  inner  nature  knew 
the  secret  of  His  repose,  that  power  which 
207 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

made  Him  appear  so  different  from  all 
other  men.  He  had  meat  to  eat  the  world 
knew  not  of.  In  the  wilderness,  when  con- 
fronted by  the  tempter,  He  stood  triumph- 
ant before  him  because  of  the  meat  which 
the  tempter  knew  not.  In  the  fierce  con- 
flicts of  His  life,  when  assailed  by  friend 
or  foe  alike,  when  even  His  own  house- 
hold failed  to  understand  Him  and  said 
He  was  beside  Himself,  He  walked  in  the 
tranquillity  of  peace,  for  He  had  meat  to 
eat  they  knew  not  of.  During  the  agoniz- 
ing passion  in  Gethsemane  and  the  excruci- 
ating pain  on  Golgotha  He  proved  to  the 
world  the  sustaining  power  of  the  meat 
which  the  world  knew  not  of.  In  life  and 
death,  in  resurrection  and  exaltation  Jesus 
revealed  the  strength  and  the  stimulus  of 
that  heavenly  manna  on  which  He  con- 
stantly fed.  "I  have  meat  to  eat  that  ye 
know  not  of." 

Here  was  the  counterpoise  that  perfectly 
adjusted  Jesus  to  His  life,  that  made  the 
208 


LIFE'S  COUNTERPOISE. 

spiritual  counteract  the  material,  that  con- 
trolled all  the  forces  of  His  being  so  that 
they  responded  to  the  purpose  of  His  life 
and  ministry.  Here  we  face  so  significant 
a  feature  in  Jesus'  nature  that  we  are  apt 
to  forget  He  was  human  and  lay  stress 
only  on  the  fact  that  He  was  divine.  This 
counterpoise  in  Jesus'  life,  however,  was 
not  due  primarily  to  His  divinity,  but  to 
His  humanity.  We  are  not  here  in  the 
presence  of  something  mysterious,  some- 
thing that  can  be  explained  only  on  the 
ground  of  the  superhuman,  and  which, 
therefore,  as  we  explain  it,  we  must  at- 
tribute to  Jesus  a  nature  essentially  dif- 
ferent from  our  own.  Jesus  in  this  in- 
stance was  making  no 'claim  in  regard  to 
His  peculiar  divinity.  He  was  revealing 
to  His  disciples  His  common  humanity. 
"I  have  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know  not  of, 
not  because  I  am  divine  and  you  are  hu- 
man, but  because  I  understand  true  hu- 
manity and  you  have  not  as  yet  discov- 
14  209 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

ered  its  essence."  Let  us  not  forget  that 
Jesus  makes  His  strongest  appeal  to  man, 
not  on  the  ground  of  His  divinity,  but  on 
the  ground  of  His  humanity.  For  He  came 
into  the  world  as  a  man,  born  of  a  human 
mother,  in  order  to  reveal  man  to  man,  in 
order  to  show  man  his  possibilities,  to  tell 
him  that  there  is  lodged  within  him  a 
divine  element  that  is  his  true,  his  real 
self;  to  urge  him  to  discover  this  element 
in  his  own  soul  and  to  develop  it  in  all 
its  expanding  powers,  until  man  should 
live  and  move  and  have  his  being  in  God. 
For  true  humanity  is  real  divinity.  Jesu& 
was  such  a  Man  as  God  at  the  creation 
intended  all  men  to  be.  He  held  a  per- 
fect relation  both  to  God  and  man,  not  be- 
cause He  lived  supernaturally,  but  because 
He  lived  naturally,  because  He  held  a  per- 
fect counterpoise  between  the  material  and 
the  spiritual,  between  earth  and  heaven. 
By  being  truly  human,  He  was  also  truly 
divine. 

210 


LIFE'S  COUNTERPOISE. 

This  is  the  overmastering  significance  of 
Jesus !  revelation.  He  put  it  in  the  power 
of  every  man  to  discover  that  he  is  a  child 
of  God  as  well  as  a  son  of  man.  Hence 
He  called  Himself  not  God,  but  the  Son  of 
God,  and  urged  the  children  of  men 
to  be  sons  of  God,  for  unto  that  end 
were  they  born.  Thus  revealing  Himself, 
Jesus  towers  above  all  mankind  in  the  sub- 
limity of  His  human  nature.  So  stupen- 
dous is  this  fact  that  if  we  really  can  com- 
prehend it  we  shall  see  in  the  very  human- 
ity of  Jesus  His  divinity. 

As  Jesus  was  on  the  plane  of  the  human 
when  He  spoke  to  His  disciples  and  taught 
the  multitude,  He  did  not  bring  any  mes- 
sage too  difficult  for  man  to  comprehend 
or  set  man  any  task  which  he  could  not 
fulfill.  "I  have  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know 
not  of,"  He  said,  but  He  did  not  imply, 
"You  can  never  know  of  this  meat."  He 
implied  the  very  opposite,  and  in  this  sense 
Jesus 9  words  were  a  rebuke  to  His  dis- 
211 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

ciples,  for  the  least  physical  fatigue  and 
hunger  threw  them  down  on  the  plane  of 
the  material  and  blunted  their  suscepti- 
bilities to  the  spiritual.  The  deeper  the 
thought  that  is  comprehended,  the  keener 
is  the  medium  of  comprehension.  Where 
the  mind  fails  to  grasp  an  idea  it  is  either 
not  yet  active  or  it  is  still  undeveloped. 
The  latter  was  the  situation  of  the  dis- 
ciples, and  they  therefore  gave  a  secondary 
meaning  to  Jesus'  words,  "I  have  meat  to 
eat  that  ye  know  not  of,"  for  they  looked 
at  each  other  in  amazement  and  said: 
"What  is  He  talking  about?  Has  any  one 
brought  Him  something  to  eat?"  Note  the 
contrast  in  Jesus.  Spirit  was  answering 
to  Spirit,  Spirit  was  feeding  upon  Spirit 
and  accomplishing  the  work  of  Spirit.  In 
the  disciples  the  order  was  reversed.  It 
was  spirit  answering  to  and  serving  mat- 
ter, the  body,  the  external  world,  the 
physical  wants  and  human  pleasures  of 
man. 

212 


LIFE'S  COUNTERPOISE. 

It  took  the  disciples  a  long  time  to  un- 
derstand Jesus'  point  of  view,  to  see  God 
in  the  world  everywhere  about  them  as 
Jesus  revealed  Him,  to  appreciate  that  the 
essence,  the  reality  of  the  material  world 
is  the  spiritual.  Jesus  ministering  to  them 
in  His  sublime  humanity  showed  them  that 
to  be  really  human  man  can  not  depend 
alone  on  physical  bread  and  meat  for  his 
sustenance.  This  is  the  mere  sensual,  that 
which  ministers  to  the  animal  in  man. 
Man  was  not  created  as  the  brute  beast, 
with  his  eyes  and  mouth  turned  to  the 
ground.  He  has  an  upward  look,  an  aspi- 
ration that  lifts  him  above  the  earth  to 
that  which  is  spiritual,  to  that  which  the 
physical  eye  and  ear  and  tongue  can 
neither  see  nor  hear  nor  taste,  but  which 
only  the  soul  of  man  can  grasp  and  enjoy. 
As  man  must  develop  from  the  lower  to 
the  higher,  so  must  he  learn  how  to  de- 
tach himself  from  the  material  and  live 
in  the  spiritual. 

213 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  realize  this.  The 
spirituality,  we  say,  of  Jesus'  nature  is 
to  be  accounted  for  on  the  ground  of  His 
divinity.  Human  beings  can  not  expect  to 
reach  such  an  exalted  state.  We  reason 
thus  because  we  are  so  chained  to  the  ma- 
terial that  we  can  not  appreciate  the  dom- 
inance of  the  spiritual  in  our  lives.  It  is 
like  going  into  a  dense  forest  where  we 
can  see  only  trees  and  leaves,  but  no  sky 
overhead  and  only  now  and  then  realize 
that  the  sun  is  somewhere  as  we  see  its 
rays  glinting  through  the  gloom.  And  yet 
the  highest  sweep  of  our  natures  is  in  the 
spiritual.  The  best  that  we  enjoy  in  life 
is  found  there.  Our  real  pleasures  swing 
loose  from  their  material  environment,  our 
souls  speak  to  and  hear  other  souls,  we 
have  companionship  and  consolation  with 
our  friends,  whether  they  be  human  beings 
or  printed  books.  When  all  other  help  or 
comfort  fails  us,  we  are  nourished  on  the 
food  that  the  world  knows  not  of. 
214 


LIFE'S  COUNTEEPOISE. 

Jesus  shows  us  this  secret  of  strength, 
this  counterpoise  of  life.  As  He  lived,  He 
gives  us  hope  to  live  also.  It  is  possible, 
we  feel,  to  detach  ourselves  from  the  ma- 
terial and  live  in  the  spiritual.  Paul  and 
Augustine,  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  Martin 
Luther,  John  Henry  Newman,  and  Phillips 
Brooks  show  us  that  this  is  possible. 
These  men  all  had  meat  to  eat  the  world 
knew  not  of.  They  grew  strong  thereon: 
strong  in  repose  and  composure,  strong 
in  faith  and  conviction,  strong  in  fidelity 
to  duty  that  sent  them  forth  in  calm  and 
tranquil,  but  confident,  adherence  to  right- 
eous purpose.  "My  meat  is  to  do  the  will 
of  Him  that  sent  Me  and  to  accomplish 
His  work." 

While  history's  estimate  of  the  work  and 
worth  of  such  men  may  vary,  it  can  not 
rob  them  of  that  glory  which  crowns  them 
as  real  men.  For  they  discovered  the  es- 
sence of  humanity.  Like  their  Master,  the 
counterpoise  of  life  to  them  was  that  spir- 
215 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

itual  food  and  force  that  fitted  them  for 
life  in  the  higher  altitude  of  being  and  re- 
leased them  from  the  petty  cares  and  trials 
of  life.  How  truly  Newman,  e.  g.,  could 
say  to  his  virulent  accuser,  who  would  rob 
him  of  all  that  any  man  can  truly  own  in 
this  world — his  character,  "I  have  meat 
to  eat  that  you  know  not  of."  He  had  his 
sorrows,  and  they  were  pangs  of  bitterness, 
but  he  also  had  his  joys,  and  they  were 
precious  morsels.  He  could  take  his  secret 
place  at  the  table  spread  by  his  Lord  and 
eat  of  that  heavenly  food  with  a  thank- 
fulness too  deep  for  words.  And  how 
many  other  men  and  women  like  him  do 
we  know  in  history? 

But  we  need  not  look  only  to  great 
careers  for  testimony  of  this  spiritual 
nourishment  that  feeds  the  soul.  Look 
into  our  own  hearts  and  lives.  Have  we 
not  had  those  moments  when  we  seemed 
to  have  been  born  under  a  cloud  and  all 
was  dark  about  us  and  our  souls  were 
216 


LIFE'S  COUNTERPOISE. 

racked  with  doubt  and  our  brains  reeled 
in  confusion,  and  we  were  ready  to  say, 
"What  is  the  use;  why  should  we  try  to 
rise  above  our  surroundings,  we  can  not 
better  them  any  way?"  Or  have  we  not 
been  tempted  to  run  away  from  our  prob- 
lems and  perplexities  and  let  others  solve 
them?  Have  we  not  had  such  moments, 
and  have  we  not  then  heard  the  voice  of 
our  truer  selves,  our  real  humanity,  say, 
"Why  magnify  your  troubles,  your  trials; 
you  have  meat  to  eat  that  they  know  not 
of?"  And  has  that  not  been  a  supreme 
moment  of  triumph,  a  moment  of  calm  as- 
surance and  satisfaction,  when  we  could 
forget  fatigue  and  hunger  and  the  weari- 
some noises  of  the  world  and  the  conflict- 
ing voices  that  shriek  and  howl  about  us. 
And  we  have  turned  to  our  duty,  plain 
and  commonplace  though  it  was,  and  with 
calm  serenity  have  answered  those  who 
feared  we  were  starving  because  we  did 
not  care  for  the  food  they  urged  us  to 
217 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

eat,  "We  have  meat  to  eat  that  you  know 
not  of."  And  when  they  have  looked  on 
in  surprise  or  even  remonstrance  at  our 
attitude,  we  have  found  a  deeper  joy  in 
being  able  to  say  to  them,  "Know  ye  not 
that  our  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  Him  that 
sent  us  and  to  accomplish  His  work?" 

Happy  is  the  man,  the  woman,  who  can 
look  upon  such  moments  of  life  and  say, 
"I  have  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know  not  of." 
This  is  the  food  that  gives  us  strength  for 
our  highest  duty,  that  enables  the  business 
man  in  the  sharp  competition  of  trade  to 
keep  his  hands  clean  and  go  through  life 
in  a  happy,  even  although  it  may  be  a 
humble,  sphere.  This  is  the  food  that 
strengthens  the  lawyer,  the  judge,  the 
statesman  to  seek  truth  and  pursue  it,  to 
advocate  honesty,  to  decide  righteously,  to 
legislate  soberly  and  well.  This  is  the  food 
that  strengthens  the  physician  and  the 
teacher  to  ameliorate  suffering  and  lessen 
ignorance,  to  help  weakened  bodies  and  en- 
218 


LIFE'S  COUNTEKPOISE. 

courage  struggling  minds  with  the  spirit 
of  the  great  Teacher  and  Physician  who 
came  to  give  life  and  to  give  it  more 
abundantly.  This  is  the  food  that  strength- 
ens the  artisan,  the  mechanic,  the  salesman, 
every  one  who  toils  with  his  hands  and 
brain,  to  go  forth  to  his  labor  with  joy 
and  continue  thereat  in  peace.  This  is  the 
food  that  strengthens  the  mother  to  give 
her  life  for  her  children,  to  make  their 
home  a  heavenly  abiding  place.  "I  have 
meat  to  eat  that  ye  know  not  of."  Meat 
that  transforms  the  home,  the  school,  the 
Church,  the  mart,  the  State,  that  makes 
of  them  all  powerful  institutions  for  right- 
eousness, that  declares  in  no  uncertain  tone 
that  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand;  the 
food  that  changes  man  from  the  likeness 
of  an  animal  into  the  image  of  his  God. 

'■'I  have  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know  not 

of."    To  be  able  to  say  this,  to  look  with 

calm  composure  upon  the  material  world 

from  our  abiding  place  in  the  spiritual, 

219 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

to  meet  sorrow  and  joy,  success  and  fail- 
ure, the  good-will  of  our  friends,  the  harsh 
criticism  of  our  foes,  because  we  have 
found  life's  counterpoise;  this  is  that  high 
estate  of  human  existence  that  makes  life 
truly  divine,  for  it  partakes  of  that  Spirit 
which  God  sent  into  this  world  to  quicken 
and  save  it. 


220 


XIV. 

AND  ANOTHEK  SHALL  GIED  THEE. 

Thbee  times  Jesus  says  to  Simon  Peter: 
Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  Me? 
Twice  Peter  answers:  Yea,  Lord,  Thou 
knowest  that  I  love  Thee.  And  Jesus  re- 
plies, Feed  My  sheep.  The  third  time 
Peter  is  more  assertive:  Lord,  Thou 
knowest  all  things,  Thou  knowest  that  I 
love  Thee.  Jesus  says  again,  Feed  My 
sheep.  He  then  adds:  Verily,  verily,  I 
say  unto  thee:  When  thou  wast  young 
thou  girdest  thyself  and  walkedst  whither 
thou  wouldest,  but  when  thou  shalt  be  old, 
thou  shalt  stretch  forth  thy  hands  and  an- 
other shall  gird  thee  and  lead  thee  whither 
thou  wouldest  not.  "Feed  My  sheep.' 9 
"Another  shall  gird  thee."  A  command 
on  the  one  hand  to  go  and  do.  A  reminder 
221 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

on  the  other  of  his  inability  to  do.  Why, 
we  may  ask,  should  Jesus  give  the  com- 
mand thrice  repeated,  and  then  seemingly 
take  the  very  heart  out  of  Peter  by  telling 
him  he  would  soon  be  useless,  another 
would  gird  him  and  lead  him  whither  he 
would  not  go? 

Did  Jesus  mistrust  Peter?  Ah,  no!  He 
was  teaching  him  a  lesson.  Peter  was  in 
the  exuberance  of  a  new  experience.  His 
soul  was  shot  through  with  the  wonderful 
power  of  Christ's  gospel.  To  him,  as  to 
St.  Paul  later,  it  was  Jesus  crucified  and 
risen  from  the  dead.  Here  was  a  message 
that  would  batter  down  the  armed  opposi- 
tion to  God's  truth  more  surely  than  the 
battering  ram  of  a  Eoman  cohort  would 
break  the  door  of  a  besieged  city.  Jesus 
sees  Peter's  enthusiasm  and  knows  his 
honesty  of  purpose.  But  it  is  the  enthusi- 
asm of  an  inexperienced  man  on  the  very 
threshold  of  his  career  with  a  confidence 
of  power  so  strong  that  its  very  strength 
222 


AND  ANOTHER  SHALL  GIRD  THEE. 

was  a  danger.  Peter  might  be  carried 
away  by  his  enthusiasm  and  miss  the  goal 
of  his  endeavors;  he  might  lose  himself 
in  the  abyss  of  over  self-estimation.  So 
Jesus  warns  him.  "Now  thou  art  strong; 
thou  canst  draw  tight  thy  girdle  about  thee, 
and  tuck  in  the  folds  of  thy  garment  and 
go  forth  untrammeled  to  journey  or  toil. 
But  remember,  the  days  must  come  when 
thou  shalt  stretch  forth  thy  hand  and  an- 
other shall  gird  thee.  So  learn  to  submit 
now." 

This  is  the  lesson  Jesus  would  teach  us. 
So  far  canst  thou  go  and  no  further.  We 
must  lean  on  others,  we  must  lean  on  An- 
other. Our  strength  to  do  will  grow  out 
of  our  willingness  to  submit.  This  is  life's 
lesson.  It  is  not  easily  learned.  Like  many 
another  lesson,  it  is  spurned  or  slighted 
at  the  very  time  we  ought  to  learn  it. 
Youth  wants  to  gird  itself.  The  child 
grows  in  its  own  estimation  the  moment 
it  is  able  to  lace  its  shoes  without  assist- 
223 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

ance.  This  is  something  to  talk  about. 
The  chasm  between  helpless  babyhood  and 
the  confidence  of  youth  has  been  bridged. 
So  the  boy  girds  himself  and  walks  whither 
he  would.  From  the  point  of  lacing  his 
shoes  he  passes  by  quick  strides  to  that 
of  determining  his  will  and  his  well-being. 
The  counsel  of  parents  and  teachers  is  well 
intentioned,  but  in  extremely  bad  taste 
when  directed  at  a  youth  who  can  gird  him- 
self. He  will  choose  his  books,  he  will 
choose  his  companions,  he  will  choose  his 
occupations.  Thus  girding  himself,  by  the 
irony  of  fate  he  is  drawn  to  minds  and 
characters  which  have  likewise  girded 
themselves  and  walked  whither  they  would. 
It  is  a  big  thing  to  be  the  chum  of  a  boy 
who  has  an  utter  contempt  for  restraint. 
And  a  little  later  he  fairly  bristles  with 
importance  as  he  turns  the  pages  of  the 
unfortunates  who  have  lost  their  bearings 
and  repudiated  the  faiths  of  their  mothers. 
He  is  not  able  to  understand  the  circum- 

224: 


AND  ANOTHER  SHALL  GIRD  THEE. 

stances  or  currents  which  drove  these  men 
out  to  the  open  sea  adrift  in  a  small  boat 
without  compass  or  rudder  and  no  knowl- 
edge of  the  shore ;  but  only  he  is  unaware 
of  his  inability.  He  girds  himself  and 
grows  bigger  and  more  daring  as  he  abso- 
lutely despises  the  thought  of  dependence 
and  accountability.  Fundamental  truths! 
What  are  they?  Who  can  determine  them? 
On  a  bright  night  he  will  look  into  the 
starry  heavens  and  delight  to  shock  his 
mates  with  the  assertion  of  his  disbelief  in 
God.  He  will  quote  disconnected  verses 
from  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  the  meaning 
of  which  he  does  not  understand,  but  which 
on  the  surface  seem  to  give  him  Biblical 
warrant  for  repudiating  the  being  of  God 
and  His  intimate  relations  to  this  world. 
His  room-mate  who  would  dare  to  kneel 
beside  his  bed  at  night,  as  he  kneeled  be- 
side his  mother's  knee  when  a  child,  and 
pray  to  the  Unseen  Presence,  he  would 
ridicule  or  laugh  to  scorn.  What  a  delu- 
15  225 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

sion  is  prayer!  No  greater  act  of  self- 
deception  is  conceivable.  To  such  a  one, 
would  lie  but  hear,  the  very  wings  of  the 
wind  bear  the  warning,  "  Another  shall 
gird  thee!"  "Would  he  but  look  he  would 
see  painted  across  the  signboards  of  na- 
ture and  of  history  the  words,  "And  an- 
other shall  gird  thee ! ' f 

Or  there  is  the  youth  full  of  healthy 
fun  and  serious  ambition.  We  look  to  him 
in  the  fondness  of  hope.  We  admire  his 
powers  of  intellect  and  will.  He  is  a  pos- 
sibility. The  whole  illimitable  world  of 
mind  and  matter  is  before  him.  We  see 
in  him  an  evidence  of  the  eternal.  We 
dare  set  no  bounds  to  what  he  may  achieve. 
We  remember,  not  without  some  feeling 
of  regret,  that  what  we  hoped  in  our  youth 
to  accomplish  has  never  been  realized. 
But  none  of  us  will  be  hardy  enough  to 
say  that  because  our  ideals  were  not 
reached  he  also  must  fail.  We  rather  say 
our  own  powers  were  limited.  We  look 
226 


AND  ANOTHER  SHALL  GIRD  THEE. 

at  him  in  possession  of  all  the  vigor  of 
youthful  endowment  and  with  life  before 
him,  and  feel  there  is  a  far  better  career 
for  him  than  there  was  for  us.  And  he, 
too,  has  something  of  this  same  feeling. 
The  warm  blood  courses  through  his  veins ; 
his  heart  tingles  with  the  desire  to  get  up 
and  do.  Who  knows  but  that  he  can  fill 
the  place  which  hitherto  no  man  could 
reach?  Has  he  not  vitality  of  muscle  and 
mind?  Is  there  not  something  tugging 
away  at  his  heart-strings  pulling  him  on- 
ward? Is  he  not  able  to  gird  himself  and 
walk  forward  untrammeled?  Thus  he 
reasons,  for  he  is  looking  through  the  field- 
glass  of  youth.  And  this  brings  every- 
thing nearer  to  him.  He  looks  in  at  the 
small  end  of  his  inexperience  and  the  world 
is  magnified.  The  mountain-top  he  would 
reach  is  brought  within  arm's  length  and 
he  can  almost  talk  with  the  gods  who  in- 
habit that  rarified  region.  But  as  he  toys 
with  this  glass  he  finds  himself  uncon- 
227 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

sciously  turning  it  around.  He  looks  in  at 
the  big  end  and  he  becomes  aware  that 
the  world  is  receding  from  him.  The  hills 
are  still  clear,  but  how  much  higher  are 
they  now,  and  farther  away!  And  how 
deep  the  valleys  through  which  he  must 
patiently  plod  before  he  can  begin  the 
ascent!  The  maturer  man  looks  at  life 
through  the  big  end  of  his  experience.  And 
his  world  is  never  magnified.  While  it 
may  seem  to  have  become  more  reduced  in 
size  than  it  is  in  fact,  still  he  can  not  escape 
the  knowledge  that  his  world  and  the  actual 
world  are  removed  by  leagues  of  space 
which  it  will  not  be  his  to  cross.  He  will 
begin  to  see  the  bigness  of  the  world  and 
the  littleness  of  himself.  He  will  realize 
that  the  world  is  not  dependent  upon  him ; 
that  his  presence  here  is  as  a  footprint  on 
the  sand  which  the  next  roll  of  the  ocean 
will  forever  wash  out,  or  as  a  drop  of  rain 
which  falls  into  the  river.  In  the  waves 
and  in  the  rain  he  will  hear  the  voice  of 
228 


AND  ANOTHER  SHALL  GIRD  THEE. 

the  inevitable,  "And  another  shall  gird 
thee.  * f  With  many  other  earnest  souls,  he 
will  be  driven  to  ask, ' ' What  ami!"  And 
the  answer  will  be : 

"An  infant  crying  in  the  night; 
An  infant  crying  for  the  light; 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry." 

In  the  buoyancy  of  youth  and  of  inex- 
perience we  think  we  are  girding  ourselves 
and  walking  whither  we  would.  But  we 
need  only  to  look  within  to  see  that  we 
must  stretch  out  our  hands  and  be  girded. 
Our  thoughts,  whose  are  they?  Our  own? 
Yes,  if  we  have  really  thought  them.  But 
our  own  only  in  the  sense  that  the  air  we 
breathe  is  our  own.  This  world  would 
be  a  vacuum  if  it  depended  upon  any  power 
of  man  to  fill  it  with  air.  The  mind  of 
man  would  be  vacuous  if  it  depended  upon 
his  ability  to  supply  it  with  the  materials 
of  thought.  Our  lungs  draw  in  the  air 
from  the  outside  and  the  machinery  of  our 
229 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

bodies  is  kept  in  motion.  The  body  is  as 
dependent  upon  air  as  the  boiler  is  upon 
water.  So  our  minds  take  from  the  out- 
side world  the  materials  for  thought.  Na- 
ture kindly  girds  us  and  gives  us  the  power 
to  go  forward  and  think  according  to  the 
strength  of  our  minds.  Only  thus  is 
thought  possible. 

Then,  there  is  the  element  of  time.  He 
who  would  say,  "Go  to,  I  will  gird  myself 
and  be  supreme,' '  must  reckon  with  the 
moments  and  the  hours.  Who  can  walk  or 
run  against  time?  Who  can  sit  still  in 
spite  of  time?  He  who  can  stay  its  flight 
can  control  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tides. 
"I  returned  and  saw  under  the  sun  that 
the  race  is  not  to  the  swift,  nor  the  battle 
to  the  strong,  neither  yet  bread  to  the  wise, 
nor  yet  riches  to  men  of  understanding, 
nor  yet  favor  to  men  of  skill;  but  time 
and  chance  happeneth  to  them  all. 9  9  Here 
the  preacher  would  leave  us  in  the  eternally 
grinding  mill  of  time,  perchance  to  be 
230 


AND  ANOTHEE  SHALL  GIRD  THEE. 

ground  fine.  But  the  psalmist  fastening 
upon  the  same  truth,  turns  away  from  self 
and  surroundings  to  Him  who  reels  off 
the  minutes  of  the  day,  and  hence  who 
controls  time  and  chance,  and  exclaims, 
"My  times  are  in  Thy  hands ;  deliver  me." 
As  the  tragedy  rises  step  by  step  until 
it  overwhelms  him  in  its  climax,  Hamlet 
remarks,  "The  rest  is  silence."  We  read 
a  book,  we  are  led  on  from  scene  to  scene, 
we  seem  actually  to  live  the  life  of  the 
novel,  we  are  anxious  to  know  the  out- 
come, we  read  the  last  sentence,  "The  rest 
is  silence."  We  can  imagine  what  we  will 
about  the  further  life  of  the  people  who 
spoke  and  acted  in  the  book;  but  so  far 
as  the  author  is  concerned,  the  rest  is  si- 
lence. The  last  moment  of  our  school  days 
has  come.  We  remember  the  exercises, 
the  applause,  the  awarding  of  the  diplomas, 
the  rest  is  silence.  No  more  will  those  days 
speak  for  us.  The  last  hours  of  our  col- 
lege course  have  arrived.  Little  by  little 
231 


THE  ASSURANCE  OF  FAITH. 

the  moments  register  the  events  of  our 
university  life.  The  dying  strains  of  the 
music  are  hushed,  the  last  farewells  spoken, 
we  hold  diplomas  in  our  hands,  but  the  rest 
is  silence.  We  look  not  into  the  past  with 
its  multitude  of  voices;  we  look  into  the 
future  and  as  yet  no  voice  speaks.  So 
through  life  we  go.  In  the  springtime  of 
youth  we  would  gird  ourselves  and  go 
whither  we  would,  and  we  feel  confident  we 
can ;  in  the  strength  of  manhood  we  would 
still  gird  ourselves  and  go  whither  we 
would,  but  we  are  learning  how  to  stretch 
forth  our  hands  and  let  another  gird  us 
and  lead  whither  we  would  not;  in  the 
hallowed  serenity  of  old  age  we  know  our 
lesson,  we  stretch  forth  our  hands  will- 
ingly to  be  girded  by  another,  we  gladly, 
trustingly  follow  whithersoever  He  leadeth. 
We  have  seen  our  friend  grow  in  the 
beauty  of  submission.  In  the  firmness  of 
his  faith  his  face  at  times  seemed  to  be 
transfigured.  We  remember  his  sturdy 
232 


AND  ANOTHER  SHALL  GIRD  THEE. 

walk,  his  strong  voice  as  it  led  us  to  the 
throne  of  God.  We  saw  him  grow  feeble, 
enter  the  sanctuary,  feel  his  way  trem- 
blingly to  his  seat.  Then  we  saw  him  borne 
in  by  loving  hands;  we  heard  the  tender 
words  spoken  in  affectionate  tribute,  we 
looked  a  last  time  upon  his  face,  we  saw 
him  lowered  beneath  the  sod,  we  heard  the 
words,  "  Earth  to  earth,  dust  to  dust,  ashes 
to  ashes, "  and  the  rest  was  silence. 
1  f  When  thou  shalt  be  old,  thou  shalt  stretch 
forth  thy  hands,  and  another  shall  gird 
thee  and  carry  thee  whither  thou  wouldest 
not."  But  He  who  said  these  words  also 
said,  "Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled; 
I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you." 

The  block  of  marble  is  dug  out  of  the 
earth  and  is  set  before  the  artist.  In  it 
he  sees  the  statue  of  an  angeL  With  coarse 
tools  and  heavy  mallets  and  powerful 
strokes  his  apprentice  will  knock  off  great 
pieces  as  the  master  has  directed  until  the 
crude  form  of  the  statue  stands  out.  But 
233 


THE  ASSUEANCE  OF  FAITH. 

no  further  can  the  novice  go.  It  is  the 
artist  with  fine  tools  and  delicate  strokes 
who  carefully,  tenderly,  chisels  out  and 
smoothes  over  until  the  very  soul  of  the 
angel  speaks.  So  is  man  detached  and  set 
down  among  his  fellows.  God  sees  the  an- 
gel in  him.  But  he  needs  the  bold,  strong, 
hard  strokes  of  the  world  to  bring  out  the 
semblance  of  his  form.  If  he  remained  at 
its  mercy,  however,  he  would  be  ruined  as 
surely  as  the  statue  would  be  marred  under 
the  heavy  and  bungling  strokes  of  the  ap- 
prentice. He  needs  to  come  under  the 
hands  of  the  artist,  for  it  is  not  his  ex- 
ternal form,  but  his  eternal  being  that  is 
to  be  brought  out.  So  gently  and  surely 
will  the  Master  work.  No  blow  falls  in 
vain  or  needlessly.  No  stroke  is  misplaced. 
Under  His  hand  the  soul  steps  forth,  ready 
for  its  place  in  the  heavenly  palace,  and 
overcome  with  gratitude  and  love,  ex- 
claims, "Thy  gentleness  hath  made  me 
great.' ' 

234 


AND  ANOTHER  SHALL  GIRD  THEE. 

"Another  shall  gird  thee."  Will  we 
resist?  Then  the  blows  will  fall  heavy 
and  fast  and  our  lives  will  be  hard  and 
unlovely.  "Another  shall  gird  thee." 
Will  we  submit?  Then  our  strength,  our 
real  selves,  the  divine  that  is  in  us,  will 
gently  but  skillfully  be  brought  out,  we 
may  be  l$d  whither  we  would  not,  but  it 
will  be  the  Master  who  leads.  I  am  the 
Way.  My  yoke  is  easy  and  My  burden 
is  light.    Follow  Me. 


235 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


